


Be a Better Me

by Lisa_Telramor



Series: Robo!Kaito [1]
Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Body Horror, Dubious Science, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid Needs a Hug, Panic Attacks, Questions of humanity, Robot Kuroba Kaito/Kaitou Kid, Self-Worth Issues, Swearing, more or less, the major character death is a technicality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:07:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 53,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24021049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisa_Telramor/pseuds/Lisa_Telramor
Summary: Kaito thought that the Robot Incident ended with the destruction of his copycat robot. He couldn't have guessed how wrong that assumption was when he is injured months later.
Relationships: Hakuba Saguru & Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid, Jii Kounosuke & Kuroba Kaito, Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan & Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid, Kuroba Chikage & Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid, Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid & Nakamori Aoko
Series: Robo!Kaito [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942261
Comments: 113
Kudos: 180
Collections: Canon? What's That?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Humanitas ex Machina](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18200612) by [Icka M Chif (mischif)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischif/pseuds/Icka%20M%20Chif). 



> Title taken from Ellie Goulding's song Human
> 
> Ok I know I tagged it major character death, but this both is and isn't true as you'll see by the end of the story. I'm tagging it because TECHNICALLY Kaito died. And it circles back to that a lot. So. Yeah.
> 
> Anyway with COVID19 going on I 1) had more time to write + 2) have had a bit more background anxiety with the world, and stress + time = angstfic for me most of the time. So this got written in about a month. Instead of any of my WIPs =_=;;;;; Hope other people are up for some angst. Either way I'm being sent back to work next week so I'm glad it chose to finish when it did.
> 
> This was 100% inspired by Icka's Robo!Kaito fic and has probably low key kicked around my brain for years since I read it back in like 2011.

His arm aches. Kaito flexes his hand, blood running down from the bullet graze that feels like fire. The robot that impersonated him is wires and synthetic skin smoking in a pile. He feels sick in his stomach, both from almost dying after a few days trapped in a lab and because he’d just seen something that had run around with his face blow its own head off.

It’s just a robot, but it’d thought it was human. It’d thought it was him, had seen his memories, just hadn’t quite been human enough to understand life, death, or morals. What kind of sick fuck made something like that?

Kaito shudders. His hand flexes again. Bandages. He needs bandages, and maybe stitches, or maybe to just. Go lie down.

His skin doesn’t feel quite right but that’s the shock probably. A lot’s happened in a couple days’ time. Like finding out someone with his face killed someone. A creepy scientist who also kidnapped Kaito, but yeah. How anything that had Kaito’s memories and personality could do that… He shudders again.

Kaito isn’t a megalomaniac in disguise right? He has lines and morals and things he’d never do in a million years, even if some of his morals are grayer than others. He doesn’t hurt people. Not physically permanent. And not any other way if he can help it.

Blood drips from his fingertips.

There’s a laboratory burning down with a corpse of a man who tried to make a man from metal out there and Kaito doesn’t want anything more to do with it.

He turns away. He has a gem to return and a budding reputation to save.

o*O*o

He feels weird for a while after that. It’s the trauma probably. Kaito can’t say his life has ever been normal. His father was a stage magician, both his parents turned out to be thieves, and he puts on a white suit to stir up shadows to try and find out why his father was murdered. That’s hardly the sort of thing a teenager usually goes through, but killer robots and kidnapping were new. His balance a bit off for a day? He spent two days strapped to a table. His arm took a bit to work right? He did get grazed by a bullet. Swimming takes a bit more effort than the last time he did it? Not weird since he generally avoids swimming in the ocean if he can. Aoko’s mop swings seem a little slower? He’s kind of hyper aware of attacks lately, so he’s just paying more attention.

Things are different but not _that_ different so it’s just his head being weird about it all. Life goes on, he stops feeling a bit off and he keeps on going as usual. Bait Aoko, play like a good student, perform magic, and pull of the next heist. Simple.

But then there’s suddenly a magic wielding witch and a detective trying to sniff him out, and life just keeps getting weirder. He doesn’t remember it being this strange before he became Kid, but it must have been at least a little weird. It’s just that practicing magic and acrobatics with Aoko and actual magic and jumping off buildings are very different things. It’s a miracle he’s managed not to break anything. What with the roller coaster, or jumping off buildings, or getting shot at, or ghost(?) pirates, or being attacked by a hoard of hairy rats… Yeah. Life is weird.

So if Kaito’s a little weird in it, well, he fits right in, now doesn’t he?

o*O*o

Kaito’s chest is aching and there’s a nasty bruise forming. He supposes that’s what happens when a gem blocks a bullet. It’s yet another miracle the sapphire didn’t shatter let alone that the bullet hit it instead of him at all. Aoko liked her birthday gift but it had taken all Kaito had to set that up for her and he’s dead on his feet now.

He might have a cracked rib too. He winces, easing off the costume. It has a hole—two really where the bullet deflected—that will need patched and the usual bleach treatments to keep it white. White is the worst color for climbing around rooftops and crawlspaces. He’d change it if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s one of Kid’s signature identifiers at this point. Thanks, Oyaji.

The bruise is worse than he first thought when he gets his shirt off. Mottled purple all along the left side of his chest. Like someone took a wooden mallet to him.

Thankfully there’s an x-ray machine down in Kid’s hideaway. It’s old and definitely not something he’s going to ever use much because, well, radiation, but he’d rather know if he’s managed to break a rib or not so he knows how much acrobatics he can get away with.

It takes a bit to set up and a bit longer to figure out how to get everything to work, but fifteen minutes later he’s got x-ray film developing in a little darkroom off to the side because apparently his dad had a little bit of everything thought out down here. He loves and hates it in equal measures sometimes.

He sighs, feeling the deep breathing ache, and looks at the forming image. And frowns.

He’s not a medical expert, far from it, but he has a general run down of the human body and has seen x-rays before. What Kaito’s looking at? Not what he’d expect to see. There’s ribs, yes, but they’re not quite right, and too dark. Then there’s all the metal. It’s like his nervous system is registering as wires, radiating out like something from one of his textbooks, same with the circulatory system that’s a bit too dark on the film. Should he even be seeing that? Heart, maybe, but branching signs of the rest of his veins and arteries? His lungs aren’t the right shape. The vague shadows of organs aren’t right either. And there’s… there’s the shadow of screws and pins and mechanical bits that shouldn’t be there. There’s wires instead of tendons that shouldn’t be showing and he has to stare.

His chest throbs and he looks down at it. Bruising. At the film. Barely resembling something human. He hurts. Aches. Yet there in front of him is mechanical parts.

Feeling like he’s floating, or maybe sinking, Kaito plucks one of his razor cards from its deck. He slides it along his finger. Skin parts, blood wells up, pain registers dimly.

But is it blood?

It drips, just a few drops, already clotting as he stares. It’s red as any blood he’s seen. The pain is real. And yet. He looks at the film.

Kaito hasn’t thought about the robot in months. Why would he? It’s over and done. He’d read a police report about the lab in the paper. About the body found and the equipment sitting in police evidence for ages as the murder case went cold. They didn’t know to look for a robot. And the robot had been left for scrap. Kaito doesn’t know what had happened to its remains.

There hadn’t been a second body found.

He looks back at his hand and finds it shaking.

The robot’s face had peeled off, but when he tugs at his cheek he just feels pain. Same with his hair. He feels. He eats and shits and sleeps and bleeds. His breath is coming too fast and it _hurts_.

It’s a mistake, right? He could take another scan and it’d be normal. Human. He could scan his hand and it would be bone and tendons and the ghost of muscle, not wire and metal joints that would make a prosthetic expert weep. Not too-dark veins and tendrils of nerves that shouldn’t be visible.

His lungs were the wrong _shape_ , he couldn’t breathe.

“Shit.”

He’s Kaito, right? Just a normal teenager with an abnormal life. Just a normal, human teenager.

The robot thought it was human.

The robot thought it was Kaito.

Kaito doesn’t remember being taken, he just remembers waking up strapped down. But the robot barely passed as human. But Kaito has _wires_ in his chest.

He looks at the film again. “Well. No cracked rib.” He laughs. It’s not funny at all. He can’t breathe. “What do I do?”

The empty basement hideaway his father left him has no answers at all.

Like usual, it’s just Kaito facing crisis alone.

He’s never felt worse.

o*O*o

Eventually, he picks himself off the floor. Eventually he changes into new clothes. Eventually he slides into bed and sleeps, terribly, but sleeps. He sees his face melting in his dreams, a broken metallic skull leaking fluid and smoke and blank mechanical eyes staring at him. His skin peeling away to show metal bones and wires as everyone he loves stares in horror.

Kaito wakes up feeling like he’s going to throw up, in a cold sweat. He can dream and sweat and feel sickening terror, surely he’s wrong. Surely.

But the x-ray is the same damning image this morning as it was last night.

Kaito’s hands start shaking again.

If he goes into class, Hakuba will take one look at him and know something’s up. Hell, Aoko will notice. He laces his fingers together. Poker face. Poker face. Whatever is going on, he’s still been Kaito for months without noticing anything wrong so. So maybe he’s… a cyborg or something. A robot wouldn’t be having a panic attack about being a robot. Who would want to _make_ a robot capable of having a panic attack in the first place?

He doesn’t know what the hell is going on, but he needs answers before he can do anything else.

Kaito calls in sick, leaves Aoko a message so she doesn’t show up demanding he get ready for school. Eats plain toast without tasting it—how can he taste it?—and slides on his shoes. His chest is a mass of dark bruises just like a human body that had a bullet deflected should be. But nothing under his skin is apparently human.

It’s easy to slip into the police record room with a borrowed face, and a matter of minutes to seek out the mad doctor’s case record. His charred remains are photographed in gristly glory front and center, but his cause of death isn’t fire. Kaito knows his hands don’t have the sort of strength to do what that file describes.

He almost throws up looking at it.

There’s lab equipment listed off, melted computers and bits of paper files to survive the destruction kept in evidence files. Kaito might need to come back and see what he can salvage from them. If he’s… not fully human, he might need some of the doctor’s research no matter how much the thought makes his skin crawl. There’s nothing in the file about the robot, but there is notes about unfinished pieces parts sifted from the wreckage. Police notes only speculate what they thought was going on in the labs.

The file doesn’t mention another body.

Kaito does a quick look into active unidentified male bodies found in the last few months, but none of them are young enough to be him. None of them recognizable. It should be a good thing.

It should be.

Instead it has Kaito’s breathing tight again because what if he died and no one ever found the body? What if he rots somewhere and no one will ever know he’s not. That’s Kaito’s not.

He leaves the police station.

There’s a disconnect between his self and emotions and it’s something he’s done before, but rarely outside of a heist. His poker face, most of the time, is an act. This is different. This is shutting bits of himself away because otherwise he couldn’t function. This is putting off a breakdown knowing it’ll be that much worse later. This is shutting a door knowing it’s going to open later and drown him.

He heads for the lab. It’s the only place he can think to go.

o*O*o

The building is condemned. It’s a burnt husk of a thing and a surprise that it hasn’t been torn down yet. Perhaps the doctor had owned it and it’s in the air what to do with it. Either way, Kaito approaches with detached caution.

He can remember leaving here in a rush, the explosion that followed not long after he made it out. He can remember the sickening glimpse of a body on his way out, trying not to look too hard and knowing it’d haunt his nightmares. Kaito steps inside and pinpoints the twisted metal that was once where he was strapped down, the shattered remains of the memory transfer machines still imbedded into the wall behind it.

The police had removed a lot of things, but they couldn’t remove the scorch marks on the walls and floor or the dark bloodstains in the corner. He shivers.

What is he doing here? The scene was gone over by police. It’s not like he’s going to find something they didn’t, and it’s not like he’s going to know what any of the machine bits left can do beyond the memory transfer one.

It’s damp and drafty inside. It smells like wet ashes and chemicals and he wants to turn around and leave, especially when he sees a metal start of a skeleton still bolted to the back wall. How many had this guy made? How many robot failures before the one that Kaito fought? How many thought they were human? How many other people were kidnapped in the process of building these things?

Things. Robots were things. And Kaito was…

The wall had collapsed along one side, and no one had bothered to clear the rubble. If Kaito was a crazy robot building scientist that kidnapped teenagers, what would he do with them? Ok, he’d been strapped down to the memory machine. But if he built a robot and implanted memories in it, he’d want to compare, right? He’d want to prove that he’d done the transfer right, so he wouldn’t just get rid of the teenager. The robot Kaito faced had transferred memories fine, but the emotional and moral processes hadn’t been right. The doctor had been basing it off Kaito and if Kaito was. If he _was_ then that meant the transfer had worked right on Kaito. Probably. And maybe the scientist had been trying to duplicate whatever happened with Kaito or maybe they’d been two different models for different purposes. Who the hell knew at this point? Certainly not Kaito.

Kaito prods at rubble. If there’s one thing he’s learned about people who have secrets to hide, things aren’t as they appear. This is a lab, but it’s missing living space. It’s missing storage and a metal foundry. The pieces that built the robots are too specialized to not be custom made. The cabinets that had existed had to have been full of wires and polymers and the fine details bits that you’d want a nice open workspace to better work with, but there had to be a place the doctor had done the base work and he’s not seeing any sign of it here. Just the start of the skeleton on the wall that’s missing its head and lower half.

He can’t look at it. It’s somewhere in between the scan Kaito took of his chest and the metal chassis from the robot he fought, its skin peeling back and—

There had to be a basement. Still is a basement probably. But the door is either hidden or buried, and Kaito’s not sure what to do first. Test the shattered remains of cabinet bases? Try scrounging through rubble? See if anything still hooked into the wall shifts and shows a hidden room like his painting at home?

The basement wouldn’t have been legally added or the police would have its existence on file for the building blueprints. But most of this place can’t have been legally built. Not with the amount of equipment secreted away. People would have asked questions. So. Hidden door.

Kaito estimates wall thicknesses versus the interior versus how dangerous it is to get close to places where the ceiling and walls are still crumbling bit by bit.

There’s a cabinet with shattered glass cases and medical supplies that have all been taken away as evidence. Kaito vaguely remembers it before the explosion. Despite half a roof caving in around it, it’s still in one piece structurally and that means it’s built stronger than a cabinet should be.

It takes twenty minutes of careful prodding and digging and tugging to get it to budge and when it does it shrieks like rusted hinges. But Kaito keeps pulling and gets a space big enough for him to crawl through, stairs traveling down.

It’s dark and even mustier than above. The floor must have cracked or the foundations, and it’s growing mold, but Kaito’s surprised to find it isn’t completely dark. Somehow there’s still power running here, probably underground. The overhead lights are shattered but in the gloom are a few red blinking lights of appliances.

Kaito wants to turn back but he’s never been one to shy away from the truth.

Glass crunches under his shoes as his small pocket flashlight illuminates fragments of the dark. A table. A kitchen. A bed, all in the first room, but heavy metal doors beyond. They’re warped though, and the ceiling sags ominously where a support beam crumpled slightly from the explosion above. Kaito has no idea how it didn’t get destroyed with the rest of the place, but it had to have been the placement of explosives.

He creeps further, leaving the eerily normal living area for one of the metal doors. It’s stuck, but he gets it to move enough to squeeze past, his ribs protesting the movement. It’s fine. It’s not important. The room is the metal foundry he’d expected, casts and tools and carefully disguised air vents branching off. It’s heavily reinforced, probably also muffled so the metalwork didn’t make too much noise. He sees finished metal bones, all sorted neatly into labeled bins and racks of molds. There’s a half-finished skull just sitting there on a work bench, empty eye sockets unnerving.

Kaito wrenching his eyes away from it. There’s papers and diagrams, documents on the doctor’s research about how the robotic body comes together, about alloys and density and weights that Kaito should keep if it ever becomes something he needs—He drops the thought into that emotional void growing in his head.

If he needs anything from here, he will take it. And will not think about what it means.

The documents about the muscular, nervous, circulatory and digestive systems aren’t here. Might not even exist anymore. But there had been a personal computer in the living space and it had glass littering it like the floor, but it wasn’t destroyed. It was one of the blinking red lights, so maybe…

Kaito’s taking that when he leaves.

The other metal door is warped worse than the foundry. Kaito has to go and get a metal femur to lever the gap wide enough to pass through and he’s surprised to find the inside almost fully intact.

One light flickers on, the only bulb not destroyed. He’s not sure at first what the room is. There’s a filing cabinet by the door, sure, but also a chest freezer and something that looks like an opaque glass case except there are wires running to it and an electric hum that’s louder than the freezer. Something in his instincts prickle and Kaito can’t explain the heavy terrified feeling bubbling in his gut the longer he stares at the simple room in the dim, flicker light.

Glass crunches and he tugs the freezer lid up. He’s half expecting to find a dismembered corpse in there. There’s not a corpse but there is vial after vial of dark liquids with strings of numbers on them and containers labeled ‘skin’ with numbers after them. The liquid looks a lot like blood. Kaito’s stomach lurches. The other containers are opaque and thankfully impossible to tell the contents of, though they could be organs, real or synthetic. Kaito really hopes the skin is synthetic.

He lets the lid close and tugs the file cabinet drawers. Locked, but he can easily get in them later. That leaves the glass case.

It has a computerized box attached to the front with strings of numbers displayed that mean absolutely nothing to Kaito. There’s controls too, but the only one he cares about is the one that opens the glass case. It unlocks with a pneumatic hiss, like its contents were under pressure and Kaito swings the glass up.

And stares down at his face.

Peaceful. Like it’s asleep. He’s asleep. But his lips are bluish and his skin is pale and, when Kaito reaches out with a shaking hand, he’s cold to the touch.

The police never found a second body.

The room goes a little sideways and dark and Kaito realizes only after his face is mashed against the metal edge of the glass case that he’s hyperventilating.

“Shit,” he hisses through chattering teeth. “Shit.” His hair’s standing on end and his whole body is shaking and he’s having a panic attack next to his own corpse. “Shit.” It shouldn’t be possible to have a panic attack when he isn’t even _real._

The room keeps spinning and blinking bright and dark as he tries to control his breathing. Shit, how can he hyperventilate when he doesn’t have real lungs and maybe not even a real _brain_ —unless. He pops back up like a man drowning and scrabbles for the case.

He tilts Kai—the body’s head one way or another, but there’s no sign of it being cut open. The hair’s the same wiry texture he feels when he touches his head and there’s no injury he can feel. The knobs of its spine along the neck are intact. There’s wires, now that he’s looking, glued at the temples, but they’re not going _in_ the body. There’s wires other places too and he has a stupid, fleeting moment of gratitude that at least the sick fuck that did this left Kaito’s underwear on. The body’s. Shit. There’s no marks and no indication of what happened, but the body isn’t breathing and there’s no pulse at its throat and it’s Kaito’s body _right there_.

It’s him but it’s not because Kaito isn’t.

He has to let go of the body and take three steps away to empty the meager contents of his stomach on the glass-littered floor. Stomach bile burns his throat. Is it even stomach acid? Is it even—how is he digesting if he’s wires and not-quite-organs? _What is he?_

He’s crying and hiccupping and he can’t quite seem to stop, the sour taste in his mouth and the smell of mold in his nose. What was the point in making a robot so close to human it can’t tell the difference between flesh and machine? What’s the point of a machine that can cry and vomit and panic like a real person? What’s the point of killing a teenager to replace him with a machine?

He crouches for an unknown period of time until the panic sort of flat lines and his tears dry. His hands stop shaking and his throat is raw, each breath a rasp. He bleeds and feels pain and emotions and—

Kaito goes back to the body. His body. Say the memory transfer worked. Say that Kaito in his entirety went from human flesh and bone to this. Intact. Say that the process fried Kaito’s brain and the doctor was left with a comatose teenager and a robot that didn’t know it was a robot. What would the doctor do with his mistake? Was the case to preserve the corpse? To keep the body as reference or had there been another purpose?

Or maybe the process hadn’t fried Kaito’s brain. Maybe the real Kaito had looked at his double. At the other Kaito and tried to break free. Maybe he’d been sedated or something else went wrong. But maybe that Kaito had died in terror and left an imposter in his place.

Kaito will never know.

There is no sign of decomposition. No sign of the body going through rigor mortis or any kind of trauma. Like he’s just sleeping. Like a few tiny stimuli could open the hidden blue eyes and the body would rise up and express how frigging cold it is in the case.

Maybe, for a scientist playing god, that had been the intent. Make a man from scratch achieved, next step bring back the dead. The first person to successfully revive a cryo patient.

Kaito closes his eyes, then closes the glass case. He can’t look at his own body anymore. He can’t. It seals with another hiss, preserving the body for however long the machine keeps running.

What the hell is he supposed to do?

He presses the heels of his hands against his swollen eyes. It’s not right to leave this here. It’s not right for any of this to be left here. It’s not right for Kaito to take the place of the real Kaito either but he doesn’t know what the hell to do. He’s been taking his place for months now; what else is there for him?

Is it better or worse if he is, in fact, a complete imprint of Kaito’s brain? Would he even know the difference if something is missing?

Worst of all, no one noticed. Not Aoko. Not Kaito or Jii. Not Kaito’s own mother. No one.

Kaito died alone. And no one noticed.

He’s crying again, not sure if it’s for himself or for the body at his back. Months. _Months._

The overhead light flickers out and all at once Kaito can’t stay here. It’s like he’s the one in the box, trapped and slowly running out of air, and he squeezes out the door and up the stairs before he can even process moving. He doesn’t stop until he’s up a tree and breathing smoke and mold free air and trying to stop trembling. ‘ _What now?’_ his mind asks. ‘ _What now, what now, what now?’_

It’s night when he finally moves. He doesn’t know how long he sat up a tree, can’t remember the sun going down, only knowing that his body aches everywhere from stillness and unforgiving solid tree limbs beneath his ass. He makes a call. “Jii?”

He doesn’t know what his voice sounds like, couldn’t pick up his poker face if he tried right now.

It must be horrible though because Jii’s voice comes through the line sharp and worried. “What’s happened?” he asks.

There’s no way to start, no words to draw on to explain the mess that this is. How does someone say that they’re dead? That they’re dead and not, human and not, all at the same time?

“Kaito-bocchama?” Jii says sharper.

“How good,” Kaito says, voice gone all wobbly and out of control, “is that friend of yours with robotics?”

“…Kaito-bocchama?” Jii says a lot more dubiously.

Kaito licks his lips with a dry tongue. Dry mouth. Probably dehydrated and doesn’t that make no sense for a robot to have that feature. “There’s a problem. And I don’t know what to do,” he admits.

He can’t say it. How can he say to Jii that Kaito’s dead, like Toichi is dead, to Kaito’s mom that he’s dead and there’s just this remnant body of wires and meat-mimicking mess wearing his face left? How can he do that?

“Where are you?” Jii says, the sound of him getting clothing, maybe or a coat in the background.

Kaito hesitates, but gives the address of the burned down lab. “How good is your friend with robotics?” he asks again.

“…It isn’t his specialty,” Jii says after a long moment.

“Ah.” Too much to hope for. Still, maybe this mysterious friend Jii gets the occasional gadget from will know how to read the research notes better than Kaito would. Keys jingle as Jii locks his front door. “Jii?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry, in advance,” Kaito says knowing it’s not enough. He hangs up before Jii can say anything in response and doesn’t pick up the return call. Instead he stuffs his phone in a pocket and covers his face with his hands and just breathes. If nothing else makes sense, at least he can do that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, seems like people are a lot more interested in robo-Kaito than I'd have thought! Thanks for the positive response guys!

The sound of car tires and the sight of headlights breaks the quiet sounds of animals and distant traffic. Jii’s old car rolls up past Kaito’s vantage point in the tree. It takes a moment to unfold his body and drop to the ground below. It feels horribly wrong that he has aches and pains in light of recent discoveries but he supposes if the mad doctor was anything, he must have been a perfectionist that had an attention to detail and a strong desire to mimic reality.

Jii rounds his car to get to Kaito’s side, taking him by the shoulders. Kaito must look a mess between rooting around in a burned and blasted building and sitting in a tree for hours. “Are you alright?” Jii asks, looking for injuries. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

“I’ve been here all day,” Kaito says. He wants to lean against Jii, to take comfort he doesn’t deserve from the closest thing he has to a grandfather. He’s going to break Jii’s heart in a minute though. It wouldn’t be fair.

“Where is this?” Jii asks, frowning.

“Remember how I told you about the robot? The one that pretended to be me?” Because he’d told Jii, of course he had, about the copycat heist that hadn’t been Kaito.

“Yes?” Jii says, bewildered. “That was months ago.”

Kaito laughs hollowly. “Yeah. Months.” He takes a breath. “This is the lab. It’s. Last night there was.” He fails to make the words come, Jii looking more and more worried. This isn’t like Kaito, except he’s not Kaito, except that he _is_. Kaito shakes his head. “It’s… easier to show you.”

He pulls free, and walks toward the lab like a man facing a firing squad. Jii follows, not asking questions even though he looks like he wants to. Kaito skirts the blood stain, lets his eyes skitter past the memory machine even as Jii takes the details in. he can see Jii’s eyes flicker to the metal skeleton bits before Kaito inches down the stairs.

It’s taking everything Kaito has to keep his expression blank and to keep the panic down. His pocket flashlight isn’t much better than it was the first time, but Jii surprisingly pulls out a second one and it helps.

“Where is this?” Jii asks, his light bouncing off a half-made bed and a water stained ceiling tile.

“A lab,” Kaito says. “And a home I guess.” He approaches the door to the glass case. Kaito doesn’t want to go in there. It’s the last thing he wants to do, but he has to. It’s only right to. “This way.” He squeezes through the gap. The light is half on, a dimmed brownout instead of a pitch black room, so it must be a case of a loose wire. It’s amazing anything is running at all. He hangs back by the freezer as Jii manages to ease himself into the room. Kaito can’t get himself to take another step forward no matter how much he should.

“What,” Jii says after a long moment of silence, “am I looking for?”

Kaito takes a shaky breath. “The case. The glass case. I’m sorry.”

Jii steps forward and the case hisses open. He’s dead silent as he stares in it, then there’s the softest sound of pain. It pierces through Kaito like a bullet.

Kaito hugs himself, shaking. Why does he keep shaking? “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t know. I’m _sorry_.” He feels small, like he’s standing at Toichi’s funeral again only it’s not his father, it’s himself and it’s so horribly wrong and nothing will make it better. “I don’t know what to do,” he says, voice cracking. “I don’t know what to do.”

“How long?” Jii asks, sounding like he aged a decade in ten seconds.

“Since I knew? Last night. But. I have to—he must have been—since the robot heist at least.” What if it was longer and he just… didn’t know? That’s terrifying. He has to believe that it wasn’t before then.

“And you…?” Jii asks, not looking away from Kaito’s body.

“I took an x-ray. On Oyaji—on Toichi’s machine. It’s. I’m. I eat and sleep and feel and hurt, I swear, I didn’t know.” He feels like the worst creature alive and then realizes he doesn’t know if alive even truly applies. “There’s metal and wires and screws and I don’t know what I bleed but it must not be blood.” His hair grows. He doesn’t know what the hell he is. “I’m sorry.” If he says it enough maybe it will mean something.

Jii breathes once, slow and deliberate before turning around. Kaito flinches, he isn’t sure if he’s expecting anger or hate or what; he’s feeling plenty of that self-directed already. He isn’t expecting Jii’s expression to crumple or the way he pulls him in for a hug.

Kaito’s eyes sting. “Why?”

“Kaito-bocchama is still Kaito-bocchama,” Jii says slowly and deliberately.

“Jii, I’m not human. I’m not even. I’m not even _Kaito_.”

“You eat and sleep and bleed,” Jii says, repeating Kaito’s words back at him. “You cry.” Kaito’s breath hitches. “You’ve been Kaito every day since the robot. You feel and love.”

“But I’m not him!” It would hurt less to be shot or cut open. “I’m just some memories and wires.”

“You’re Kaito,” Jii says firmly, tears in his voice. And Kaito crumbles because what else can he be? He’s all of Kaito that’s left and not creepily preserved flesh.

Jii holds him and Kaito clings back until their tears dry and he’s no longer shaking. It’s amazing he still has tears to cry.

“What now?” Kaito asks, lost.

Jii holds tight for one long, slightly painful moment before letting go. He looks at the glass case. “We find a way to get him out of here. And get as much of the research and other things someplace safe as well.”

“I kind of want to burn it,” Kaito admits.

“Your body works differently now,” Jii says, like Kaito’s merely swapped a flesh and bone model for an upgraded mechanical one. “We’ll need whatever information we can get to take care of it in the future.”

“…I probably can’t grow older,” Kaito says. No matter how well he mimics a person, the doctor can’t have managed everything. And then there’s the fact that technology on the whole doesn’t have a long life. His whole body is experimental. He's a ticking clock with who knew how long on the countdown.

“We’ll figure out what you need,” Jii says firmly.

“…There’s what looks like false skin and blood samples in the freezer,” Kaito says.

Jii nods and pushes Kaito gently toward the door.

“But…”

“This isn’t something to do tonight or alone.” The two of them wouldn’t be able to pry the door open enough to get the glass case or freezer out of the room let alone up the stairs and out of the building. As Jii takes over with quiet authority for once, Kaito is almost glad to let go. He’s in no position to think logistics right now.

Jii drives Kaito home and Kaito is exhausted but he can’t sleep. Not in the car and not after Jii has gone, leaving quiet assurances that he will figure out a way to get everything that looks important from the lab somewhere secure.

A machine shouldn’t need sleep in the first place.

He stays awake until the sun is starting to come up. No amount of exhaustion is enough to make him feel human.

o*O*o

Kaito should have taken another sick day. If the worried furrow on Aoko’s face meant anything, he must look like hell. He didn’t though for all the good it does. He isn’t paying a bit of attention in class. Heck, even Hakuba’s looked over a few times. Even _Akako_. He can’t do this today. He can’t just smile and laugh and pretend that everything is normal and nothing’s changed. He can’t pretend to be Kaito today.

He goes to the nurse at lunch before anyone can stop him to talk. She takes his temperature and Kaito has no idea how this body reads as slightly warmer than baseline human, but it does. He’s left in a dim, curtained off area to just sit and rest the best he’s able, which admittedly isn’t much.

The problem is that there’s no way to fix this. He can’t bring Kaito back. He doesn’t even know if he’s a good enough replacement. No one noticed. But then who would? Kaito has only known Jii a few months, his mother is never home, and Kaito has been distancing from Aoko to protect his secret identity as Kid for a while now. Hakuba and Akako? They never met Kaito when he was still alive. They wouldn’t even know what to look for. Kaito’s not even sure what to look for.

But then again, there’s a list of little idiosyncrasies. His greater difficulty swimming—he has metal bones and wire tendons now. Surprisingly he doesn’t actually weigh much more than before; Kaito had put it down to greater muscle mass. But metal doesn’t have the buoyancy of a human body. The changes in his balance can be blamed on the slight differences and inaccuracies in the skeletal and ‘muscular’ structure of this body. His hands having the occasional trouble with certain bits of dexterity could be explained by that too. There’s a possibility that his body processes data and can react faster than before. Not as fast as the robot that tried to kill him, but faster than human Kaito ever could.

He doesn’t seem to have the oddities of the other robot. He can’t make his neck grow or shoot from his elbows. His skin can’t peel off painlessly. He feels human in every way. He bruises and heals. There’s a scab on his finger to prove it. He wasn’t built, it seems, to be a robot the way the other had been, but to be a person and Kaito’s not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. If it makes his existence better or worse.

He isn’t Kaito but he is.

Kaito closes his eyes. It’s not sleeping, but it’s probably as close as he’s going to get for a while.

o*O*o

Jii’s friend somehow gets all the mad doctor’s remaining work in his basement. Kaito’s body is there too, though Kaito refuses to seek it out. He’s still waiting to call his—Kaito’s—his mother about it. That’s… he still doesn’t know how to tell her. The thought of saying it out loud, seeing her smile crumble into the same dead-eyed grief he’d seen with his father has him paralyzed. Kaito’s never thought of himself as a fearful person, or one to let it win, but in this he can’t win. It’s not like his fish phobia. That, at the end of the day, won’t actually hurt him or anyone else. This can hurt him and hurt him and hurt everyone he loves.

Kaito sits in a chair as Jii’s friend sets up an x-ray machine of his own. Kaito wasn’t sure what to expect, but a cheerful older man with a love of word puzzles both is and isn’t the level of eccentricity he’d been braced for. This is the guy who made Kaito a rocket powered scooter and roller skates. He also apparently blows up his own workplace on the regular if the roped off side of the house is anything to go by.

Jii introduces him as Doctor Agasa. Considering the last doctor Kaito dealt with is the one who killed him, it made him uncomfortable until Agasa cheerfully said he could just call him Professor.

Kaito can do Professor. He doesn’t have any baggage tied to that.

He wonders how Jii convinced the Professor to help or if he’s just the sort of person who is happy for a challenge. Does he know there’s a corpse in his basement?

The Professor smiles, and Kaito, keeping his mask in place, smiles back. “I just want to have a few full body scans,” the Professor says, “so we have them on hand if there’s any need to reference how things are supposed to look in the future.”

“Do you think you’d be able to fix anything if it went wrong?” Kaito asks.

“Eh…” The Professor gives an uncomfortable laugh. “Well, I have a lot to read up on, so please take care not to get injured for a while if you can.”

“Right.”

It’s a simple matter of holding still and moving only where the Professor wants to get all the shots. Kaito looks at them afterward with a mix of revulsion and fascination. If the body wasn’t his… It would be interesting, almost artistic in how it is put together. But it is his body and he hates its unnaturalness and everything that means.

“I know you told me what happened,” the Professor says to Jii as they look at Kaito’s robotic body in black and white scans, “but if I wasn’t looking at this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it. Whoever built this body was incredibly skilled.”

“He’s also incredibly dead,” Kaito says tensely. Like Kaito is dead. “Excuse me, I need to…” Kaito trails off and leaves the room. He climbs up to the little observatory and onto the roof.

Kaito’s always felt better in high places. There’s fewer people, the air is clear, and he’s not trapped. The world is open above and around him and some part of him, the part of him that spent hours daydreaming as a child, still feels like if he closed his eyes and wished hard enough he’d grow wings and fly. The glider is as close as he can get to that.

Professor Agasa lives in a mansion-turned-laboratory. It’s a lot of space for one man. He must make good money doing inventing. Whoever lives in this neighborhood must be pretty well off too. Take the mansion next door; it’s a very different style, but equally big as the good Professor’s home. Kaito wonders who lives there and if they’re like Agasa or more like Hakuba. Hakuba’s home is as big as the two mansions put together, but then Hakuba is a grandson of a major innovative scientific lab owner and the son of Tokyo’s superintendent general of the police force. Hakuba was born with a proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. Kaito’s not poor by any means, but his own home is maybe half the size of Agasa’s neighbor’s place. For all that Toichi was an amazing magician with world renown, he hadn’t spent his money on property.

Knowing what Kaito knows now, a lot of that money had to be going toward Toichi’s work as Kid. It still did technically; smoke bombs, disguises, and materials for magic tricks weren’t exactly cheap.

Kaito sighs. The fresh air helps, but it can’t solve his problems.

He holds his hand up against the sun. It does the thing all hands do, going red at the fleshy bits where the light hits and staying dark in the center. It feels like it should be different but it isn’t. Kaito’s hands are the same as he can remember them being. Faint scars, calluses, slightly crooked pinky and all. He doesn’t know how the doctor managed to get the details right. He has the right moles, the right scars, the right wear on his body. His fingerprints don’t quite match but they’re close enough to pass at a glance. He still isn’t sure that he was only kidnapped two days. Odds are he’ll never find out if it was longer. The only one who might have known is the Kaito that’s dead. Or perhaps the other robot-Kaito, but he’s dead too. There’s something there, losing two of himself with the same face and memories, something to be said but he’s not sure what.

Maybe he just has rotten luck.

There’s a child in the street heading toward Agasa’s house. Kaito watches idly. Maybe it’s Agasa’s neighbor. Or, Kaito rethinks as the boy stops at Agasa’s gate, maybe it’s a grandson or great nephew. The boy looks up and meets Kaito’s eyes. He pales like he saw a ghost and Kaito steps away from the edge of the roof.

He’s not up to interacting with people, not even a child.

Kaito meets Jii in the stairwell on his way down. There’s grandfatherly worry on his face and Kaito feels guilty all over again. He dredges up a smile for him and it almost looks sincere. “I just needed some air,” he says.

“Of course, Kaito-bocchama,” Jii says gently.

The front door opens and closes, the child from a moment ago calling out a greeting. Kaito listens, hearing the welcoming tone in Agasa’s reply before shaking his head.

“We should go.”

JIi nods.

“Is everything…” Kaito bites his lip. “Will everything be okay?” The body. The notes. Trusting the Professor.

“Hiroshi-san hasn’t let me down before,” Jii says. “Everything will be fine.”

“Right.” Downstairs is Kaito’s body, pristine and perfect in a glass box. If this were a fairy tale, a princess would swoop in with true love’s kiss and wake him up. A modern day Snow White. But Kaito’s body is dead, not asleep, and people don’t wake up from the dead in reality.

If Kaito’s body broke, could this mind just be transferred to a new one?

Or will he just die, erased like an unsaved data file, gone in mind and body and presumably soul?

o*O*o

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” he hears Aoko say to Keiko. “Kaito hasn’t been himself. I’m worried.”

“It’s Kaito,” Keiko says. “He’s probably caught up in making plans for a new trick.”

“Maybe…”

“You’re his best friend. I’m sure if it was anything serious he’d come to you.”

Aoko smiles, tense around her eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, he would… He would.”

Kaito hates himself more.

o*O*o

“Something’s different,” Hakuba says, sharp and too observant.

“Different?” Kaito laughs, joker mask in place. “Really? Are you sure you’re not just not getting enough sleep? Kid running you ragged?”

Hakuba scowls. “Kuroba,” he says, low and dangerous.

“Aw, did I hit a sore spot? Sorry, but you detective critics will never reach the pinnacle of amazing that is Kaitou Kid’s showmanship.” Kaito does a little showy hand wave. “You should just stop trying.”

“I will figure it out,” Hakuba says.

Kaito grins, grins, grins. “Of course you will, detective.”

Hakuba grits his teeth.

It’s a brittle win.

o*O*o

“I’m fine, Kaa-san,” Kaito says, smiling at the video call. “I’ve just been busy lately with my night life.”

“Maybe it’s time to take a break,” his mother says, playing with the sunglasses in her hair. “It’s not going to hurt anything if you take some time to rest.”

“And miss all the opportunities of limited time gem showings?” Kaito says. “Nah. I know what I’m doing. I’ve got this whole thief thing down pretty well I think.”

“You’re doing great at it, Kai-chan, but it won’t help anyone if you run yourself ragged. Take a break, sleep more, take Aoko on a date.” She wiggled her eyebrows, teasing.

“Kaa-san,” Kaito groaned. “No.”

“Yes. You’ve been flirting for ages.”

“It’s just flirting.” Kaito had been distancing before because of Kid and now there’s another layer to it. One more reason it’s not going to work out for him. “I don’t have time for anything like that.”

“Kaito,” his mother says, exasperated. “You’re only a teenager once.”

He might be a teenager forever. He laughs it off. “I have plenty of time to be a teenager without dating.”

“Anything else new in your life?” Chikage asks.

It’s on the tip of his tongue to answer and answer truthfully.

In the end he can’t kill the cheerful light in his mother’s eyes. Kaito smiles. “No, I’m fine. It’s just the same old same old. Being a phantom thief is becoming a routine.”

She laughs and tells him about a show she’s working with and Kaito listens with a smile, mind ages away. He can’t tell her. He can’t. Kaito doesn’t want to lose this, whatever little bit he and his mother still have.

“Goodnight, Kai-chan, I love you!” she says in chirpy English at the end of the call.

“Have a good day, Kaa-san,” Kaito says. “Love you too.”

If a robot can love, he loves fiercely. He loves and he breaks his own heart by existing instead of the real Kaito.

He lives in fear that one day his mother will look at him like he’s a monster wearing her child’s face. In his worst moments, he acknowledges that in a way, he actually is that. Metal and wires, a mask of a boy that died too young.

o*O*o

Something had to break. It’s just Kaito’s luck that that something is him.

It’s not the first time his glider has crashed, not the second or third or even fourth, but it’s a bad crash. The heist went off fine. There were no complications with the police. There was just a sniper he hadn’t seen and sudden pain fogging his mind and reaction times enough that he’d spiraled and caught half a tree on the way down.

The tree probably saved his life, but that doesn’t stop Kaito from fading in and out of consciousness, tangled up in his bent and broken glider. There’s a horrible buzzing in his head and too much red dripping from his shoulder. Shot. Through and through? Or graze? He tries to move and almost blacks out from pain as it radiates like fire from his right leg, a shoulder, and at least three of his ribs.

Kaito would love to say he doesn’t make a sound similar to a dying puppy, but he does, a thin high, whine rising to almost a shriek as his brain receives pain feedback in redoubling waves. He can’t move. In fact some parts don’t seem to be responding at all. He pants, trying to keep awake and push past the pain to at least see if he can reach his phone in his chest pocket. It’s probably broken, but if not, he can call Jii. Have him set up something at the Professor’s place because it’s not as if he can take this to a hospital

Moving his good arm is agony and he moans, fishing out the cell phone. It’s cracked, still functional though, and his fingers fumble against chipped glass to reach his contacts. Kaito’s vision blurs. It’s not quite right how it does it either, more like the jumpy blink of a satellite TV struggling for a signal than properly messed up eyes. It’s the first time he’s really felt his body do something inhuman and he hates it. He calls. It might be Jii. It might be Nakamori-keibu for all he knows. He can’t lift the phone to his ear so it sits on his collarbone picking up the rushed, pained sound of his breaths.

Someone picks up, male, can’t identify further, Kaito tries for words and ends up choked and hurt sounding and notes an uptick in alarm in the voice on the other end. In the end, “Please,” is all he can manage before his hand can’t hold the phone anymore.

Maybe he lost too much ‘blood’ or maybe there’s too much feedback for whatever he has for a brain. Regardless, the world cuts out, like something does a soft reboot, and when he comes back he’s on the ground and someone is trying to hold him still.

Kaito panics when a hand presses against his wrists, like his arms pinned down at the doctor’s lab, like handcuffs, but he has no leverage, no strength to fight it now. He whines, a whirring, glitching sound, and he must be broken beyond repair. He’s broken and a machine can die, like the robot died, like the real Kaito died and there won’t be even this echo left to keep people from crying about his loss—!

“Kuroba, calm down, Kuroba, Kuroba, Kaito!”

He stares up at a face that resolves itself to be Hakuba. Shit. Shit. He’s dead and compromised. His lungs choose that moment to glitch. Or maybe it’s just a run of the mill panic attack. He seems to have those a lot lately.

“Dammit,” Hakuba says, under his breath and scared. “Kuroba, is there anyone that knows how to fix this? I… I can’t take you to the hospital,” he says. His voice breaks and there’s nothing about this situation that’s right.

“Pro-fessor!” Kaito chokes out. “Phone.” The Professor’s number is in there with Jii’s and Hakuba lets his wrists go to scramble for it.

There’s swearing and then frantic words he can’t focus on as his vision blinks again. When it blinks back there’s Hakuba above him, very clear compared to a moment ago, or maybe he just reset again. He’s streaked with red and terrified.

“Am I dying?” Kaito asks. It’s like the second blink cut off parts of his system. He can’t feel half his limbs. It’s less painful but more alarming.

“Someone’s coming,” Hakuba says. Hakuba’s touching his hair. Or face? Maybe more? It’s so hard to tell. Hakuba isn’t someone who likes touch…

“Meant to call Jii,” Kaito says. “Sorry.”

“Don’t bloody apologi—”

Blink, a car’s headlights overly bright. Blink, a table, fear spiking because he’s strapped down _again_ and no, he doesn’t want to die or be replaced, he doesn’t want— Blink, pain in his leg, but he can feel his leg again, but his eyes aren’t working, just sounds he can’t process, voices, two, three men. Blink, screaming that he registers as his own as suddenly he can feel everything all at once and it hurts, hurts, yelling in the background—

Kaito wakes in a medical cot. His eyes work fine. The buzzing in his head has stopped. He tries to move and feels a dull ache through his whole body and sharper throbs from his chest, shoulder, and right leg. Ah. He was shot, crashed the glider. He had managed to badly damage metal bones in his leg and goodness knew what to the flesh-like part of it. Kaito bruises so who knows how bad a mess his body is now. His body. Mechanical, but it’s his. It’s the only thing that’s wholly his own and not a dead man.

He wonders if pain meds still work on him because he has a feeling he should be hurting more than he is. It takes a bit of effort to glance down, but he can see that his leg is splinted even through the blanket covering him, and his left arm is in a sling.

Kaito heals fast. He’s healed fast since… Well, he can’t remember if he’s healed fast his whole human life or if it’s been faster since he became a robot, but he knows it’s faster than it should be. The bruise on his chest had healed in a week. His cut finger, two days. This is painful, but if it was fixed properly, it will heal fast too.

There’s a drip attached to his hand. He still has a circulatory system, so it has to be inserted there. He must have lost a lot of blood. Or whatever it is that runs through his body.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

Kaito’s head jerks toward the door making him hiss with discomfort; moved too fast.

The Professor holds up a hand like he thinks Kaito’s some kind of scared animal to be pacified. “We were worried we were going to lose you for a bit there, but you seem to be recovering quickly.”

“How long?”

“About two days.”

Both more and less than he was expecting. “Was anything broken beyond repair?”

And the Professor looks… unsettled. Maybe by Kaito’s blank face, or maybe remembering the mess Kaito was in. “One of your leg bones had to be replaced and the knee rewired. I’m not a roboticist or a surgeon,” he says a slight pinch to his brow, “so I can’t say if it went completely right until you try to use your leg, but I did the best I was able.”

Kaito stares a long moment. Remembers flashes of agony. Something in him pushes that memory away. “How bad was my head messed up?”

There’s a longer pause. “There were a few loose wires but as far as we could tell, that is it. When we replaced them…”

Ah. That would have been when he came to screaming. Or maybe that was the leg bone being replaced. Goodness knows Kaito can’t tell. He’d think that his memory should be crystal clear since he’s a robot, but no, it’s just as muddled as anyone human’s would be from a major traumatic incident. Well, if he could feel and cry and panic, why not have massive memory blanks from hormones and or loose wires?

“…I can’t remember much,” Kaito confesses. He doesn’t remember the Professor getting there, at least he doesn’t think he does.

“Kounosuke and your young friend were very worried,” the Professor says, taking a seat by Kaito’s side. He looks at something just outside Kaito’s view and a twitch of his head reveals a computer screen with numbers on it. Belatedly, he realizes there are wires trailing from it to him and feels… He doesn’t feel. He’s too tired for that emotion to properly form. “They stayed and helped with the repairs. I don’t think I’d have been able to manage it without help. You were rather busted up.”

“That happens when you fall four stories and through a tree after getting shot,” Kaito says numbly. Then, “Friend?”

“Er, Hakuba, I believe his name was?”

Kaito closes his eyes. Hakuba. Shit, right, he’d somehow called Hakuba instead of Jii, Hakuba who was already chasing Kid and probably had had an idea of Kaito’s trajectory even before he went down. No wonder Hakuba had been the one to find him. Hakuba has to have so many questions. Actually, Kaito has questions because Hakuba had just accepted that Kaito wasn’t human and went straight to trying to help him anyway. “When am I getting arrested?” he asks.

“Eh?”

“That ‘friend’ is a detective. I assume there’s only so long before the police show up.” He pauses. “Though I’m not sure about how they’ll process a robot. I can’t imagine I have any rights once that’s revealed.”

There’s silence and when Kaito opens his eyes, Agasa is looking at him like he’s both crazy and someone to be concerned about. “I don’t think your… the detective is going to be calling the police, Kuroba-san.”

“No? That would be a first. He’s only tried to unmask me every time we interact.” Hakuba’s not a bad person. He isn’t. He’s just a jerk and very single-minded about uprooting everything Kaito has worked for.

“…I… don’t think that’s a current concern,” the Professor says hesitantly. “He seemed more worried about your survival than your identity or any sort of legalities.”

“Huh. Priorities I guess.” He would put a life above the law. Again, Hakuba’s not _bad_ he’s just kind of a stick in the mud. Kaito should probably feel a little bad about thinking that. Hakuba did just save his butt. At the same time, he’s done very little until now to give Kaito warm and fuzzies. “Are either of them still here?”

“Kounosuke is making some phone calls, but Hakuba-san is resting. Neither wanted to leave before you woke up.”

Kaito nods. At least he can do that much. Move his head. Wiggle his fingers. “Thank you for fixing me. You didn’t have to, but I’m kind of glad to not be a bunch of scrap metal and questionable mush.”

Agasa looks disturbed again. “Of course,” he says like anyone would do that. Like anyone would see a person-shaped robot and try to fix it instead of letting it die like the abomination of nature whatever he is more accurately resembles. “Do you have any questions? Need anything to eat or drink?”

Kaito is thirsty and has plenty of questions, but he shakes his head.

“I’ll go let the others know you’re better,” Agasa says and leaves in a hurry.

Kaito tips his head toward the drip going into him. Saline. Probably, though he can’t know for sure. There’s an empty bag in the bedside trash with traces of dark liquid. Replacement ‘blood’. It should honestly probably be in a biohazard waste for all he knows what its makeup is. Maybe he could ask Hakuba to put it through a few lab tests. Not like he didn’t already with a stray hair. The hair’s a scary thing. Kaito’s not sure if the mad doctor must have taken some of Kaito’s human hair and seeded in with synthetic or if it really isn’t synthetic at all. If it’s not that just brings up more questions that Kaito isn’t sure he wants answers for. As much as a part of him is curious, he really doesn’t want to know what he’s made up of. Knowing would make him even less human than he already is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact, this story's word doc is titled 'robo kaito angstfest'


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know having Kaito's robot self have more or less biological functions is a little weird. But someone, even Kaito, woulda noticed him not eating. Or bleeding. Or sleeping. So weird almost biology it is.

Surprisingly it’s Hakuba, not Jii, who barges into the room first.

His hair is a mess and his sleeves are rolled to his elbows with stains on his shirt that can only be ‘blood’. There’s something fragile in his expression like he’s expecting to find Kaito on his deathbed and a deep relief when Kaito meets his eyes with an impassive stare.

“You’re okay,” Hakuba says.

“For a certain value of okay, sure,” Kaito says.

Hakuba scowls. “Don’t even start. You almost died in my arms.”

“I didn’t know you cared that much,” Kaito says, only half sarcastic.

“Of course I care,” Hakuba says. “I might want to arrest Kid, but I never would want to see you dead.”

“Funny,” Kaito says drily, “because that’s what an arrest would get me.”

Hakuba bites his lip, tense as a riled cat. Kaito half expects to be pounced on like a mouse, but Hakuba takes a breath and settles. “Are you in pain?”

“I have a leg that got vivisectioned and reconstructed, a bullet hole in my shoulder and a chest full of dented ribs,” Kaito says. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Hakuba says, “since I don’t know how much you feel in the first place.”

“What, the screaming didn’t make it clear?” It’s cruel to say that probably, and Hakuba goes grey-white, looking sick.

“Right,” he says. “That was a foolish question.”

“It hurts but not unbearably,” Kaito says, taking a bit of pity on him. “Like a deep bruise so long as I’m not moving. I don’t know if I’m on a painkiller or if my system’s just…filtering it out for the moment. I don’t know if I can even be affected by pain killers.”

“You can,” Hakuba says, still pale. “Some. The Professor—you can.”

“Ah.” Kaito doesn’t want to know what Hakuba saw. Well, he knows some of what he must have seen. “I haven’t taken anything since… I wasn’t sure.”

Hakuba swallows, shaking off horrors of Kaito in pieces. “You weren’t always like this,” he says.

“A robot? No.”

“When… How…?”

“Before you met me. As for the how… I can’t exactly say I get the science of it.”

Hakuba’s face pinches. “The whole time.”

“The whole time,” Kaito says tiredly. “I didn’t know for a long time, so don’t feel bad about not noticing. So far as I can tell, the whole point of…whatever it is I am was to mimic human life as close as possible.”

“You didn’t know.”

“Imagine my shock,” Kaito says, “when I found my own corpse.”

Hakuba pales impossibly further looking like he’s going to be sick. He sits heavily. “Corpse.”

“I have all the memories of Kuroba Kaito,” Kaito says as detached as he can make it. “Up to and including the moment of his kidnapping. I don’t have any memories of how he—I died.” He takes a breath. “The body’s in the basement of this building actually. His body. My body. However we’re framing it.”

“ _Why?_ ” Hakuba asks horrified.

“Kuroba Kaito’s just fine,” Kaito says in a flat, dead tone. “He’s right there, going to school, living his life. Surely the body’s a mistake. It’s not like there could be two of him.” Or three. He still doesn’t know what happened to the remnants of the other robot. He doesn’t really want to look either. More honestly and openly he adds, “I don’t know what to do with it. Him. My mind says I’m him, but he’s dead and I’m not human so who the hell knows.”

Hakuba shakes his head.

“The person who made me and killed him is dead,” Kaito says. “There was another robot, a less…human… robot. It killed the doctor. Tried to kill me. I think something went wrong with its programming or maybe it wasn’t meant to mimic a human like I was. I don’t know. I know I don’t have skin that peels away or rockets in my elbows.” He sees skin peeling in his nightmares often enough.

“It feels like… there should be something…”

“To do?” Kaito gives him a cool stare. “There isn’t. There’s no justice here. There’s a corpse and there’s me, a poor replacement with a dead man’s face.” Doubly true with Kid.

Hakuba’s face twists. “You’re the only Kuroba I know. You said you didn’t even know the difference so how the hell does that make you a poor replacement?”

“Because I’m not _him_ ,” Kaito says, voice breaking, mask shattering. “You found me and you saved me, but why? The wires had to be obvious.”

“How could I not?” Hakuba says. “You were dying and aware and bleeding out in my arms, how could I _not_ do everything to keep you alive? You might be mechanical, but you still have breath and a heartbeat and a sharp, human mind.”

“What does it say that a person can be reduced to numbers and code?”

“What does it say that emotions are just collections of chemicals and thought and memory just electric firing in the brain,” Hakuba shoots back.

“I took his place.”

“From what I can tell it sounds more like you keep him living on,” Hakuba says boldly.

Tears well up and Kaito stubbornly doesn’t shed them. “Why does everyone keep acting like I’m human?” he asks.

“In your mind are you any different?” Hakuba asks, like it’s a genuine question.

“I don’t know,” Kaito says feeling small. “I just know that physically I am.”

“Well,” Hakuba says, “I for one can’t believe a mere robot could possibly outthink the entire Japanese police force.”

Kaito snorts bitterly. “Like bots haven’t been beating humans in strategy for ages. Chess masters weep. Try again.”

“Fine,” Hakuba says. “I don’t think a robot would cry from fear and pain and express terror over dying. Or do magic tricks just to see Aoko-chan smile. Or give a damn about whether it can run circles around the Japanese police force, but we both know you have an ego that loves to be satisfied doing just that. You’re as human as can be given the circumstances.” Hakuba boldly sets a hand on Kaito’s good shoulder and Kaito stares at the point of contact. “Regardless of how your current existence started, you’re as alive as I am so far as I can tell, Kuroba-kun.”

It’s profoundly weird to be touched by Hakuba’s words, but Kaito is. It’s almost like they’re friends at the moment, not rivals. Kaito has to look away. “Thank you for not letting me die,” he says after a moment.

“There wasn’t any other choice I would have made,” Hakuba says seriously.

There’s a cough from the door, Jii standing there with a phone in hand and a tense expression. Hakuba looks at him and draws back.

“I should go,” he says. “Now that I know you’re going to survive.” He nods to Jii and walks toward the door, and a tiny part of Kaito wonders if he’ll go looking for Kaito’s body or not.

But that’s not really something important. Hakuba seeing it or not can’t bring back the dead. Jii takes Hakuba’s place at Kaito’s bedside with a sigh and slow, heavy movements that make him look every bit as old as he is.

“You’re not arresting me?” Kaito calls after Hakuba.

Hakuba glances back with the familiar expression of disdain on his face. “Kuroba, if I catch and arrest you, it’s not going to be because you’re bleeding out and vulnerable.” Like it’s obvious that he won’t take advantage of what he knows and yet also isn’t going to stop chasing Kaito. Kaito blinks. Well, Hakuba always has had his own system of honor. Kaito can’t say he understands it though.

He waves and leaves and Kaito looks at Jii to see him watching Hakuba vanish with a conflicted expression.

“Jii?”

Jii shakes his head. “I’m glad you’re okay,” Jii says quietly. “I should have been there last night, ready for anything that went wrong.”

“I’m the one that told you I’d be fine on my own,” Kaito says. “And they hit me six blocks from the heist, it’s not like we were expecting that.”

“Still. I should have been there for you.” Jii passes a hand down his face. He’s old enough to be Kaito’s grandfather, looks every year of that age, worn down and exhausted. “I spoke with your mother.”

“Oh.” Kaito tries to curl into himself but can’t and so just hunches his good shoulder and ducks his chin.

“You didn’t talk with her.”

“I… I meant to eventually.”

“Kaito-bocchama,” Jii sighs, a reprimand and exasperated care all in one.

“It’s not really something to bring up over a phone call,” Kaito says. “I was hoping…” Chikage hadn’t visited in months. When he was sixteen she’d come back every other month for a week or so, but since he turned seventeen… It was a conversation he’d hoped to have in person, or perhaps never at all if it could be avoided, no matter how much it was a needed conversation.

“She’s coming home,” Jii says tiredly.

“For Kaito,” Kaito says, meaning the real Kaito.

“For both of you,” Jii says. “You could use your mother’s support.”

There’s no point in protesting that she isn’t really his mother. Kaito just nods. “Is she… Will there be a burial for him?”

“It’s too soon to say.”

They can’t just keep Kaito in a glass box, forever preserved like some messed up Snow White tribute. It’s not what he’d have wanted. It’s not what Kaito wants. He’s not sure what he does want, but leaving his body in a box like a specimen isn’t it.

“The Hakuba boy has a surprising amount of medical and chemical knowledge,” Jii says after a moment. “There were some things he cleared up from the doctor’s notes last night. He might be able to understand them better than Hiroshi-san.”

“Are you suggesting making Hakuba a proper ally?” Kaito asks with brittle humor. “Hakuba. Hakuba whose father’s the head of Tokyo’s police forces Hakuba.”

“Hakuba-kun isn’t his father,” Jii says, “and he’s proven to care enough to ignore the legal scope of right or wrong.” He sighs again. “Kaito-bocchama, the fact of the matter is neither Hiroshi-san nor myself is an expert in this field, and you’re likely going to need more than what our knowledge can provide long term.”

_“Hakuba_ ,” Kaito stresses.

“If he’s willing you might as well take advantage of it. Otherwise we’ll have to start looking elsewhere and it’s harder to be sure who you can trust.”

Trust Hakuba or trust a stranger? Well, irritatingly, it’s pretty clear who he’s more likely to trust. It’s some kind of cosmic irony. The world, Kaito’s learning, seems to have a sick sense of humor or he wouldn’t exist at all.

It’s a scary thought though, the idea of handing over what made this body work and letting Hakuba study it. It might be more trust than he can give to anyone. With Jii he didn’t have much of a choice. “I’ll think about it,” he says.

o*O*o

It takes three days—an astonishingly fast time—for Kaito be up and walking again. In part this fast recovery is thanks to the fact that he doesn’t actually have to heal a bone; a bonus for metal bones he guesses. But on the other hand, the internal healing is taking time. The Professor had tried to explain his understanding of how Kaito’s bio-mechanical processes worked—the synthetic blood, tissue, and skin all having a self-replicating and repair process to keep him operational without needs for frequent major repairs. The technicalities go in one ear and out the other, and Kaito will have to do a lot of reading to get a better idea of how his own body works.

In the time Kaito’s stuck at the Professor’s home, Hakuba visits every day, somehow managing to be far less abrasive than normal, and maybe even verging on friendly. It’s kind of creepy and Kaito will be relieved to get on with their usual bickering banter the moment Hakuba gets over whatever weird combo of guilt and pity he seems to have for Kaito at the moment.

Most of his visits also lead to him studying Kaito though, so maybe Hakuba’s just got science on the brain instead of detective-ing. It had been more than a bit uncomfortable to have him on his knees, examining Kaito’s leg and knee joint.

Kaito’s still not sure if it was because it was Hakuba doing it, or if it’s the implications of having someone on their knees at his feet that was the bigger discomfort, and he’s not going to examine that too closely. The last thing he wants to do is find out how this body might differ on hormonal levels. He’s spent this long pushing those sorts of thought out of his head, he can keep doing that.

His leg’s in a light cast, just to ensure that everything heals up correctly, and Kaito’s already finding it obnoxious. He’s broken bones before, but every time it’s a hassle to deal with. He hobbles in circles on crutches, resigning himself to a week of this at least probably, knowing it could be a lot worse.

Most of all he just wants to go home. No offense to the Professor, but he misses his house and his bed and his doves. He’s always hated being a guest and he wasn’t exactly an invited one this time.

There’s a soft knock on the door to the guest room Kaito’s using and he sighs. Probably Agasa again. He keeps double checking Kaito’s healing and Kaito gets it, really, it’s all experimental and new, but it’s annoying and he’s vibrating out of his skin with how he can’t even literally climb the walls.

“Come in,” he says, less graciously than he should considering he is, of course, a guest. But if Agasa had a problem with Kaito’s attitude he could take it up with Jii because Kaito’s been through so many emotional rollercoaster moments lately he’s done. Just done.

There’s silence and Kaito glances up from trying to see if he could get the crutch to work more comfortably with his still healing shoulder and looks straight into familiar blue eyes. “Kaa-san,” he says numbly.

She stares, doesn’t come closer to hug him or say anything and Kaito remembers; he’s not her son.

“…I didn’t think you’d be back so soon,” Kaito says to break the silence.

“I’d have been here sooner if I could,” she says. There’s nothing in her voice to let on what she’s thinking and Kaito can’t remember ever seeing her so closed off. It’s her version of Toichi’s poker face and it’s an iron wall.

The silence stretches and the guilt rises back up in his gut. “I… should have said something as soon as I re—”

“What did we do for your last birthday?” Chikage asks, cutting him off.

Kaito blinks. “We… went out to dinner with Aoko to that Korean barbecue place. We shared bulgogi and you took me to get a tailored suit because you said it was a good time to have nice formal wear that actually fit.” She’s almost cried because he looked so much like his dad when he was younger.

“When did you lose your first tooth?” Chikage says, showing no reaction.

“When I was six and a half,” Kaito says immediately. “I lost both my front teeth because I messed up a flip and landed on my face.” It had hurt and he’d cried, terrified that he’d lost them for good until his mom explained he was going to lose them anyway. They hadn’t even been very loose, just starting to wiggle. “I drank from the gap with a straw until they started to grow back in.”

Something in Chikage’s shoulders loosens, but her face still remains a wall. “Why are you afraid of fish?”

Kaito flinches, instinctively trying not to remember one of his childhood traumas. “C-can I not answer that? F-finny things are evil and whoever created koi ponds is a sadist.”

“And what wat your first magic trick?”

“Vanishing coin,” Kaito says. “Only I had trouble with it so Oyaji had to show me about four different ways to do it before I was able to get one I could make work. Of course then I had to get all of them right over the next month.”

Chikage closes her eyes and lets out a slow sigh. “Kaito.”

“Yes?”

She shakes her head. “No, you don’t understand. You’re still Kaito.”

He realizes she was testing him. Testing how close to Kaito he was and he curls in on himself. “I’m what’s left of him.”

She shakes her head again, but finally crosses the room to pull him into her arms. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Kaito asks, off balance and vulnerable, feeling like a child in her arms. He has the memories but technically he’s never been a child. Or, well, technically he isn’t even a year old yet.

“I wasn’t here when you needed me,” she says. “You’ve always been so self-sufficient that I forget sometimes you’re not an adult yet.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“Well you’re my kid, and I haven’t been a very good mother.” She holds him a bit tighter. “I’m going to try to do better.”

“But I’m not your Kaito,” Kaito says.

“You’re not,” she says and it’s almost a relief to hear it even as it hurts, for someone to acknowledge that he isn’t the same. “But I’ll mourn him in my own time and you’re him in every other way that matters. You’re not a replacement,” Chikage whispers, voice shaking, “but you are a part of him.”

“Have you seen…?”

“No. I wanted to see you first.”

And make sure he really is her son, in a way. Kaito closes his eyes. He can feel her shake, crying silently, but he makes no effort to move from the embrace. He needs this too. This is a situation where there is no winner. Her son is dead, and there’s an identical false copy in his place, like Kid pulling of a jewel heist. Kaito just isn’t sure what his flaws are yet, apart from the physical, that mark him out as the fake. He’s lucky that they seem to love him anyway.

Chikage pulls away, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand. “Thank you. I know it’s been you I’ve talked with for months now, but…”

“You had to be sure,” Kaito says, understanding.

Chikage nods. “Are you well enough to come home or are you still under observation?”

Kaito pouts. “I think I’m fine, but Jii and the Professor want to do another day of tests just to make sure my leg is healing right.”

“Jii mentioned it was bad.”

“Well, they replaced the fibula in my leg and had to fix all the connections and my knee joint so…”

She looks a little paler, glancing at his walking cast with new understanding. “You shouldn’t be walking at all.”

“I don’t heal like a human does,” Kaito says with a grimace. “It’s…faster. You’d think I wouldn’t need to heal at all but the bastard that built this apparently liked realism.”

“That’s probably for the better,” Chikage says after a moment. “If you functioned too differently…”

He’d what, stop feeling human? Kaito’s already there, feeling like some unholy science experiment most of the time instead of a robot, but that’s honestly not really better. He’s not going to say that to his mother though. If he was a little more robot he’d hurt less, probably feel less… and possibly end up exactly like the other robot. Shit. Okay, yeah, maybe the realism is for the best.

“Jii said you haven’t had lunch yet,” Chikage cuts into his thoughts, “and that it’s important that you do.”

Kaito grimaces again. “Yeah. Funnily enough, my system processes food for fuel just like a human’s. It’s no wonder I never noticed anything was different. But they have me on a weird diet because apparently the fake skin and all,” he gestures at his leg, “it can self-repair, but it needs certain building blocks to do it. If I see another kale protein shake I am going to throw it at them.”

Chikage laughs, wiping the last of her grief from her face. “I’ll have to see if I can put together something that tastes better.”

“Please. Also I haven’t had sugar in days. I’m having withdrawal.”

“…Can you get withdrawal?”

“I have no idea, but I’m craving chocolate like crazy.”

She snorts. “You always have liked chocolate.” Her hip bumps his good side gently, like the times growing up when he helped in the kitchen. “I’ll see what I can do.”

While Chikage works her magic in the kitchen with help of the Professor and Jii, Kaito gives in to the restlessness and hobbles back and forth around the wide open living area. The Professor, for all he’s an inventor and scientist, seems to also be a bit of a mystery and romance geek. He has a collection of hard-bound novels on a bookcase, and while there’s a few science books in the mix, most of it’s fiction.

Kaito would like to be playing with a deck of cards, or spending some quality time with his doves, but since his cards were ruined along with his Kid suit and he doesn’t have any of his birds on hand, a novel isn’t the worst way to pass time. Although Kaito’s never been a huge mystery fan. He wrinkles his nose at the Sherlock Holmes collector’s edition. Hakuba’d like that.

Kaito has just started in on a romance instead—very tasteful cover full of wistful stares and absolutely no nudity—when his mom wanders out of the kitchen with a blender full of something that looks chocolatey. Jii follows with his hands full of kale like he expects Kaito to choke that down raw. Gross.

“Well, I couldn’t get a concession on the shake, but this will taste a lot better,” Chikage says with a grin. “Plus, chocolate.”

“Heck yeah,” Kaito says.

“You really should,” Jii starts, but Kaito’s mother waves him off.

“One meal isn’t going to hurt.”

So Kaito puts down the book, hobbles over to get a glass, and that’s when the front door opens without even a knock, and a child wanders in with a scowl behind oversized, thick rimmed glasses.

“Hakase, I need a breath of sanity and some help with the watch,” the child says, not looking up as he kicks off shoes like he lives here. “It keeps sticking when… I…” He catches sight of the group standing in the hall between the kitchen and living room. His eyes flick from Chikage’s pitcher, to Jii’s handful of kale and land on Kaito’s crutches, following up to his face where the gaze freezes. “What the hell?”

“Well,” Kaito says, “that’s the first time an elementary student’s sworn at me.”

“Aoko-chan swore at you all the time,” Chikage corrects.

“That was when we were both _in_ elementary school. There’s a difference.”

“Hakase?” the child calls a bit louder, uncertain.

The Professor bustles out of the kitchen. “Ah, S-Conan-kun, I didn’t know you were coming over!”

“What’s going on?” Conan asks. Kaito realizes this is the kid he saw from the Professor’s roof that one time. Clearly he’s pretty close to Agasa, but it’s not like Agasa’s going to go around spilling secrets to a six year old.

Agasa looks between Conan and Kaito’s group. “Ah, I have a few guests at the moment, Conan-kun, and I’m doing some work as a favor for a friend.”

“A friend,” Conan says, his shock turning sharper.

Kaito shivers as those eyes pass over him again. It’s like he’s being dissected by a laser beam, and Conan’s weirdly interested in his face.

“Yes.” Agasa laughs awkwardly. “Jii Kounosuke is an old friend, and the others are…”

“More or less his extended family,” Chikage cuts in cheerfully. She glanced Conan over. “He looks just like you did when you were that age, Kai-chan,” she says. “Well, a bit neater than you ever were.”

“Are you saying I was a slob?”

“Kaito, honey, your hair has never laid flat a day in your life. Add that to your tumbling and getting into trouble…”

Kaito scowls. The kid looks like someone stuffed him into nice clothes like they’re trying to make him a mini adult, what with the blue suit jacket and tiny bow tie and how his hair’s carefully combed. Can’t help having a cowlick though. And those shorts… What a dorky sense of style. Conan catches him looking and scowls right back. Defensive little guy.

“Who are they anyway?” the kid asks, his voice tilting up like he’s trying to sound younger than he looks, which kind of fails with his entire body language, but Kaito’s not going to be the one to give him acting lessons. It probably works on some people, but that’s because a lot of adults barely look twice at children. “He looks a lot like…”

“Ah, this is Kuroba Chikage and her son Kaito,” Agasa says. “And that’s Edogawa Conan. He’s—”

“Related to the Kudos isn’t he?” Chikage says, looking at Conan intently. “He looks so much like their son Shinichi did as a child.”

Conan blinks rapidly. “Uh. Shinichi-nii-san is my cousin,” he says. “Wait, Kuroba as in the magician Kuroba Toichi?”

Chikage grins. “Exactly the one. You remember Yukiko don’t you, Kaito?” she asks tilting her head in Kaito’s direction.

“Uh.” Yukiko, Yukiko… He had a vague recollection of an actress and a smiling woman with ringlets in her light brown hair. “Not well.”

Chikage pats him on the shoulder. “You were five, so I’m not too surprised. You were such a charmer, giving her a flower and everything.”

The memory comes into focus, handing off a flower to a beaming woman because his father had said that’s what you do when you met a pretty girl; you were polite and gave them flowers to leave a good first impression. He’d done the same to Aoko not long after too. “Oh yeah.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet a relative of theirs at any rate,” Chikage says. She finally hands Kaito a glass of protein shake and he almost fumbles it before holding it with his bad arm and keeping his good one for the crutch.

“Yeah,” Conan says, flicking Kaito yet another look.

“Is it the injuries?” Kaito jokes, “because I assure you it’s normally my charisma drawing attention.”

It’s both hilarious and cute how Conan’s nose wrinkles for a split second before he covers it up again—definitely needs acting lessons—and shrugs. “You just look a lot like Shinichi-nii-san.”

Chikage laughs. “They would wouldn’t they?” she says, and Kaito doesn’t get the joke really, but fine. There’s apparently a guy running around with a face that could be his own. At least this time it’s not another murder-bot so he’ll take it.

Of course, face doubles make him think of the corpse downstairs, and that’s… Yeah. Yeah, no, not thinking too close about that. At least this double must be running around alive and well he supposes.

Well as interesting as being confronted by a child half his size is, Kaito has other things to be doing. Namely eating, sitting, and trying to convince his mom and Jii to take him home. “Right,” Kaito says. “We were going to have lunch, but that’s taken care of.” He mock toasts with his glass as much as he can with his arm in a sling. “It looks like you need to talk, so we’ll be in the kitchen.”

Conan shuffles like he’s feeling a little guilty for barging in, but it’s not like he interrupted anything actually important. However he’s feeling, it isn’t enough to keep him from gripping the Professor’s sleeve and pulling him off to have a private conversation.

Kaito sinks into a kitchen chair and takes a sip of his shake. Mm, chocolate. “This tastes ten times better than what they’ve been feeding me.

“It’s not nearly as healthy,” Jii says with a sigh.

“You know, you absorb more nutrients when you enjoy what you eat,” Kaito shoots back. Humans did anyway. But since there's no way of knowing if that applies to him, he’s just going to claim that factoid as valid.

Jii sighs like he’s the victim. It’s not even his taste buds.

Chikage snorts and pours herself her own glass. “He’s always been picky,” she says to Jii.

“I’m not picky.”

“You cut most seafood out of your diet and you live in Japan.”

“I’ll eat ffff—seafood,” he grumbles. “But only the kind I like. Shrimp and crabs and clams are fine. And it’s not like I boycott anything that has finny things as an ingredient, it’s just the less it resembles them the better.”

“See?” she says to Jii. “Picky.”

Kaito rolls his eyes. The chocolate shake, whatever else is in it aside, helps. Sitting here with his mom helps. He hadn’t realized how much he missed her actually being there, but it’s calming. Even though he knows it doesn’t work that way, having a parent present makes him feel a bit more like things are going to be okay. Like somehow Chikage will fix things even though he knows full well that’s not how it works. She can’t just sweep in and fix the Kaito downstairs or make Kaito actually human. She can’t wipe away any new traumas either. Couldn’t when Toichi died, can’t now. Parents aren’t all powerful and don’t have all the answers. But it’s pretty nice to let her take over being the adult for the moment.

He’s tired.

The last swallow of shake is rich on his tongue. He could probably pick apart what’s in it, but he’d rather enjoy it. Especially because life keeps reminding him how fleeting the good moments are lately.

“So, could I go home if I promise to let Hakuba look me over every twelve hours or something? Pretty sure I’m not going to fall apart at this point.”

Jii looks heavenward like he’s asking for patience. Chikage pats Kaito’s shoulder. “One more night,” she says. “I’ll talk to Agasa-san about what we can do to keep track of how you’re doing at home.” Her smile slips a bit. “I have a few arrangements to make before we move you anyway.”

“Ah.” Right… “Do you want me to come with you to…?”

She shakes her head. “I’d like a bit of privacy if that’s okay.”

“Yeah.” Kaito looks at the empty glass in his hand. “He’s your son so…”

Jii coughs softly and takes their glasses to wash them and Chikage stands to go face her dead son. She gives Kaito a wan smile and he wishes he could keep her from going and looking. She needs to look, but if it haunts Kaito, it’s definitely going to haunt his mother.

Kaito flees for the roof for lack of better places to go. He takes the romance book with him but he kind of doubts he’ll end up reading it.

It’s another beautiful day. It feels like the weather should reflect such heavy things like dead sons and imperfect copies, but nature doesn’t care what the piddly beings scrambling around on the earth’s surface are experiencing, it just does what it always does.

He ends up pulling out his cracked cell phone, now with a strip of clear tape across its front to keep from breaking worse until he can get a new one. There’s an unread message from Hakuba that goes on and on about the chemical properties of Kaito’s blood compound. Apparently Hakuba must have borrowed his grandfather’s lab space again. “ _So glad I’m providing you entertainment,”_ Kaito texts back sarcastically.

_“You should know how your body works,”_ Hakuba sends almost immediately. _“I’ll be over tomorrow to go through more research notes._ ”

It’s Hakuba who’d eventually hacked into the doctor’s personal computer. Kaito doesn’t doubt that the facility upstairs had been full of even more detailed information, but there had been enough filed in the remains of the living area and foundry for everyone to work with. Agasa might have been able to use the synthetic blood from the chest freezer and patch Kaito’s skin with similar samples, but it’s Hakuba who’s intent on understanding how they work and can be reproduced. It’s just weird how Hakuba’s not hounding him about the Kid thing at all.

_“I might go home tomorrow. I’m trying to make it today, but they’re not budging._ ”

_“Kuroba, don’t be an idiot. Your leg is still in a delicate state and we still don’t know if the loose wire in your head he fixed was the only one.”_

_“Vision has been working normal and no brain problems here. Besides, my mom is here and she’s going to be watching closer than Jii probably.”_

_“It’s good for there to be another set of eyes,”_ is all that Hakuba sends back and Kaito scowls at the message.

There’s a few from Aoko, worried about him, but he’d made it sound like he had a bit of an accident and was fine but not really up for visitors. It would only work for so long, so that is another reason to return home. Kaito’s life is a mess these days. Just one lie after another.

Although… less lies at the moment than there have been. He wants to believe that’s a good thing, but less lies mean more people hurt with the knowledge that Kaito’s dead. It’s a tossup whether it’ll be a relief long term or just another problem.


	4. Chapter 4

The kid finds Kaito on the roof. Kaito half expected his mother or Jii to come find him, but thinking about it, he knows they’re dealing with his body and yeah, more things to not think closely about… He didn’t expect to see Conan though.

“Hey,” he says. He’s lying on his back watching clouds, and is going to have a heck of a time getting up without aggravating anything but it’s fine. It’s peaceful. But he’s ready to be distracted.

“…Is that one of Hakase’s romance novels?” Conan says, instead of commenting on Kaito’s location.

Kaito glances at the book, set open so he doesn’t lose his page. “I got bored. Only it turns out not bored enough,” he says. “I like tropes as much as the next guy, but it’s not even good writing. Also the tame cover mislead my expectations.”

Conan snorts and looks away like he’s embarrassed to get caught laughing. “Yeah, he has better taste in mystery novels than romance ones.”

“I take it you’ve read some?”

“I get bored,” Conan says sitting on the ground near Kaito.

Kaito’s willing to bet he intended to come up here for some privacy, but he doesn’t look put out by finding someone up here. Conan’s missing the watch he wore earlier, and a bit of the tension in his shoulders. Conan watches Kaito as Kaito watches him, and it feels like they’re sizing each other up, only without the underlying threat that would be there with Hakuba or some of Kaito’s other acquaintances.

“Mystery novels aren’t my thing,” Kaito says after a moment.

“No?”

“Nah. I enjoy fantasy and scifi a lot though. I get some great inspiration from them sometimes.” Kaito shrugs his good shoulder. He’s not so big a fan of either as he used to be though. Running into actual magic and insane scientists does that to a person. “Mystery isn’t bad, it’s just…” He purses his lips. “Usually it’s pretty black and white. There’s someone bad who hurts someone and the detective either is assigned a case or stumbles in and figures it all out and justice is served, yadda yadda.” He waves a hand vaguely. “Add some moral ambiguity, have the protagonist be more of an antihero or vigilante, and that’s a lot more interesting. Crime dramas are bad enough on television.”

“Not a fan of proper police protocol?”

Kaito laughs. “I don’t think any of those shows know a thing about how actual police stations run.”

He gets a smile in return. “They really don’t. But I think you’re not giving mysteries enough credit. It’s not about good and evil and justice. Mystery novels are about solving puzzles and picking apart riddles. It’s the satisfaction of putting things together and figuring it out with the main character.”

“Maybe I’ve just read the wrong mysteries then because most of the ones I’ve got my hands on have know-it-all detectives and impossible jumps in logic at least twice in their deductive process.” Kaito levers himself up an bit and adds, “If you tell me to go read Sherlock Holmes, no, I’d rather attempt to climb off this roof than read that again.”

Conan’s eyebrow goes up. “A bit extreme. Holmes is good.”

“I have a classmate who practically roleplays Holmes. I think it’s a _thing_ for him.”

Conan snorts again, and Kaito decides he might like this kid after all. “Are you staying with Agasa-hakase long?”

“Who says I’m staying now?”

Conan picks at a stray bit of concrete. “The bag of clothes in the guest room. Only one room in use, clothing only your size, so…”

“Well aren’t you the detective,” Kaito says.

Conan gives him a sharp grin that’s actually a little chilling. There’s something about him that’s a bit off, and it’s not how he was a moment ago. Kaito’s sure that was genuine conversation, but there was the weird moment of childish-ness downstairs earlier and there’s something older in his eyes now. Kaito’s seen weirder things, but there’s definitely something more to Conan than meets the eye. “I _am_ a detective,” he says, so sure about it, not like a kid playing make believe but like an adult stating fact.

There’s something about him that has Kaito believing him. “Huh. Well, Edogawa Conan, detective, it’s a pleasure to properly make your acquaintance. Earlier doesn’t count.” Kaito grins. “Kuroba Kaito, magician,” he offers, doing a bit of sleight of hand to offer Conan a tiny paper crane he’d made during one of yesterday’s fits of boredom—only having one arm in full working order had made it a fun challenge for a handful of cranes.

Conan doesn’t look the least bit impressed at Kaito making it appear, but he does take it, turning it over in his hand. “How long did it take to make this with your arm in a sling?”

“Less than ten minutes,” Kaito says. “I can usually do it in under two though.”

“Hmm,” Conan says and tucks it away in a pocket.

Kaito narrows his eyes. “…You’re one of those people who likes to pick apart magic acts, aren’t you.”

“Is there any other reason to watch a show?”

He takes it back, he doesn’t like this kid. “All detective types are critics,” he says with a sigh. “The point is to suspend disbelief and enjoy the skill it takes to make tricks look effortless.”

“Like you never pick apart someone’s technique to understand it.”

“I mean, eventually. But during a show I’m there going, wow, that’s really cool. Look at the amazing things humanity can do.” Kaito flops back down, looking at the sky again. “All the illogical things humans can do…” Humanity at its best, creating amazing things because they can, and at its worst, Kaito case in point.

“I like to understand things,” Conan says. “It doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the skill.”

“Only look down on those who get caught up in it?” Kaito challenges. Sometimes it feels like that’s what Hakuba does, picking at Kaito’s heists and scoffing at the officers that fall for Kaito’s smoke and mirrors. Not always, but sometimes.

“No. It’s fine for people to get caught up in the wonder. There just has to be people who look past it too. Curiosity and a desire to understand aren’t a bad thing.”

Only when they’re ruining the wonder for others, Kaito thinks. He shrugs.

Conan sits, quiet for a while, joining him in cloud watching. Kaito usually is either putting on a show or a little awkward around kids. But Conan doesn’t really feel like interacting with a child. If Kaito wore his usual friendly mask and performer persona he’s pretty sure Conan would either be wary or laugh at him.

“How’d you get injured?” Conan asks after a while.

“Can’t deduce it?” Kaito asks.

Conan scoffs. “No one can actually do Holmes’s tiny detail deduction with a hundred percent accuracy. I’d say a vehicle accident but you don’t have bruises from an airbag, and no road rash from a motorcycle.”

“Well, an accident was involved. There was also a tree and a drop.”

“Ouch.”

“Yup.” Kaito waits a beat. “Are you avoiding going home?”

“Are you avoiding your mother and… extended family member?”

Kaito huffs a laugh. Conan is both interesting and irritating, and terribly sharp.

“They’re not staying here with you.”

“Kaa-san just got in from Vegas. Jii’s got a business to run.”

“And you live alone and were injured.”

“And you’re the Kudos’ cousin yet you don’t live with Agasa or next door.”

“Don’t I?”

“You haven’t been here the entire time I have, and you never came or went next door, also there’s no room set up for you here.”

“For someone that dislikes mysteries, you’re good at deduction,” Conan says.

Kaito wrinkles his nose. “Take that back.”

Conan snickers. After a moment he stands. “I don’t live here,” he says. “And I need to get back before anyone starts worrying.”

“Ah.” Kaito’s a little sad. This is the most interesting conversation he’s had in days. And he’s been pretty bored.

“Are you here long? You didn’t answer earlier.” Conan stands with his hands in his pockets. He still looks dorky in that blue jacket, but he’s not at all what Kaito thought he’d be like at first.

“I’m probably going home today or tomorrow. Kaa-san’s back so…” Kaito sits up. “Nice meeting you I guess.”

Conan nods and it’s weird but Kaito feels like he’s being treated like an equal instead of like a proper older-younger respect. But it’s not really insulting coming from him. Conan gives a wave and walks away without looking back. What a strange kid.

o*O*o

Kaito doesn’t ask what they do with the body. He doesn’t want to know. Except for those morbid moments that he kind of does. So long as he’s not going to accidentally run into his own corpse again, though, he’s probably better off not thinking too hard about it. Chikage was upset enough after seeing it that Kaito doesn’t want to keep digging at an open wound. His existence is probably enough to do that already.

The only person in his life right now that doesn’t know what he is, is Aoko. It’s a weird thought. Chikage keeps walking around the topic, Jii acts like Kaito is the same as he ever was, and Hakuba’s made Kaito a pet science project, but at least he still has Aoko.

“I still can’t believe you managed to hurt your leg bad enough to miss half a week from school,” Aoko says at lunch. “You should have told me you were staying with Jii. I’d have brought you your notes!”

“He took me to the hospital but it wasn’t _that_ bad.”

Aoko gives Kaito’s walking ankle cast and the bandages protruding from the hem of his pants a doubtful look. Her eyes go up to his shoulder. It’s still in a sling but he should have it off tomorrow.

“It wasn’t that bad of a fracture, it’s just to keep from putting too much weight, you know. I’ll be fine in like a week.”

“It takes longer than a week for bones to heal, Kaito,” Aoko says.

“Yeah, yeah, it’ll be fine.”

She flicks him in the forehead. “Take better care of yourself Bakaito!”

“Ow…” Kaito rubs at his forehead. In the rest of the classroom, Hakuba’s sending him sideways glances like he has been all day since Kaito came back. He’s the least subtle person ever. Akako’s also sending him looks though and that makes the hair on his neck stand on end because Akako paying attention to him is never a good thing. “You don’t need to worry Ahoko. Kaa-san’s home now. She’s not going to let me do anything dumb.”

“Only you would attempt a trick that could put you in the hospital,” Aoko grumbles. “I’m glad your mom’s home though.”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve looked sad lately,” Aoko says, showing one of her uncomfortably sharp moments of insight.

Kaito, being Kaito, laughs. “I’m fine Aoko.” He leans on his good arm, a smirk on his face. “You know I can take care of myself. I bet I could even dodge your mop even like this.”

“I’m not going to smack you while you’re hurt.”

“Well that’s nice to know. While you’re feeling generous, you could take care of me. I mean I am injured.” He flutters his eyelashes.

“Don’t push it,” Aoko says with a scowl.

Kaito grins and Aoko lets it slide. Because he’s Kaito and Kaito does stupid things and makes himself play the cheerful eye-catching fool. Still, Kaito does appreciate her. He can’t say it so instead he leaves a flower for her to discover in her desk, one of his signature roses that she’ll recognize.

Interacting with Aoko’s the only time he feels normal

o*O*o

“You don’t have to spend so much time around me,” Kaito complains to Hakuba. Hakuba’s taking over Kaito’s desk and a month ago Kaito would have laughed his head off at the thought of Hakuba in his house let alone his bedroom. But here they are.

Hakuba rolls his eyes. “I know I don’t.”

“I’m not falling apart.” Kaito moves his now-brace-free arms and legs. “In working order. No need to put me under a microscope at the moment.”

Hakuba sits back in Kaito’s desk chair, lounging like it’s his own. It rubs wrong at Kaito and he kind of wants to kick the chair and knock him over. “I know that. Have you considered that I want to?”

“I’m not going to give you inside information on heists or… or give up all my secrets either.”

“Kuroba,” Hakuba says like Kaito’s being particularly slow, “I don’t expect you to. I won’t poke into your life as Kid so long as you are out of uniform. I thought I was clear about that. And as fascinating as you are scientifically, I’m not going to play evil scientist on you so you can stop acting like I’m going to try vivisecting you.”

“It’s a real concern,” Kaito says, crossing his arms. He knows somewhere along the way he’s started using less masks with Hakuba. It’s hard to keep them up when Hakuba’s seen him bleeding out, seen Kaito incoherent from pain on an operating table with his body cut open, and Kaito has been poked and prodded all over by surprisingly careful hands. “I know the Professor gave you all the notes to play with and samples to test to your heart’s content. There’s no reason to watch me like a hawk.”

“I’m not.”

“Surveil me, then. Whatever term you want to use, you’ve been watching me and coming over all the time and it’s weird.”

Hakuba makes a face that’s almost a grimace.

“Or are you going to deny that you’ve been acting strange?”

“I admit I’ve been perhaps a bit over-enthusiastic about the technology that went into your body, but if it was just the technology I would have been pouring over the scans and notes first and examining you later once I wholly understood them.” Hakuba hesitates.

Kaito wonders what the hell could make the ever-confident detective pause.

“I’ve been looking at you for hints of Kid since I got to Japan,” Hakuba admits. “And now I know that you are Kid, so now I suppose I’m looking at you.”

“What the heck does that even mean?” Kaito blurts, brain to mouth filter failing.

“I know Kid,” Hakuba says with the surety of someone who has spent a lot of time building a criminal profile and looking at methodology—Kaito’s read Hakuba’s profile for Kid and some things are scarily accurate and insightful. “I just realized I don’t know Kuroba Kaito very well yet. And… I’d like to.” He looks flustered and Kaito has a tiny part of him that worries Hakuba might be falling for him (that’s his ego talking though, he thinks, the part that _likes_ attention in all forms from pretty much anyone). But Kaito looks at this from another angle. At Hakuba’s behavior since he’s arrived in Japan.

“…Hakuba are you trying to be my friend?”

Hakuba stiffens and looks even more flustered. Wow, awkward. “Well, I thought it was fairly clear,” Hakuba says. “I do care for your physical wellbeing, and I’ve been trying to know you better.”

All those attempts at conversation while Hakuba looks over his leg suddenly make so much more sense. It wasn’t just Hakuba trying to make an awkward situation less awkward and failing. He’d been trying to connect. He’s had more success just talking about things in his own life instead of trying to figure out Kaito’s interests.

The real question is why does Hakuba even want to be friends? Because honestly Kaito’s messed with him more often than not either to throw him off track about Kid or because an annoyed Hakuba makes almost as good of expressions as an annoyed Aoko.

But Hakuba doesn’t have any friends here. He doesn’t interact with his classmates, and Aoko’s one of the only people that keeps trying to be friendly and who isn’t celebrity crushing on him. Actually, Kaito’s been one of the few people Hakuba’s consistently spoken with even before all of this, and sure they bickered and Hakuba slung accusations and Kaito sent back pranks, but Hakuba kept seeking him out through all of that.

Is Hakuba lonely?

“Is it that hard to believe I might be interested in friendship?” Hakuba says with irritation that’s probably masking hurt.

Kaito gives himself a mental shake. “I guess not, I just don’t know why the heck you’d choose me.”

“You’re never boring and I like a challenge,” Hakuba says instantly. More hesitantly he adds, “And you can keep up with my train of thought when we discuss things.”

He is lonely then. Kaito suddenly feels a bit guilty for finding him annoying so often. He can be annoying and obnoxious, but Hakuba isn’t as bad as Kaito originally thought either.

“Well,” Kaito says slowly, “most people don’t keep up with my train of thought either, so I guess I can appreciate that you do, even if it’s sometimes annoying when I’m at a heist. The challenge can be pretty fun I guess.”

“Exactly.” Hakuba smiles, not smug at all for once. “I’ve enjoyed matching wits with you. It’s… nice to be able to without as much at stake…”

Ah. Hakuba usually works with worse criminals than Kid. People who’re desperate and lash out, who’ve killed or stolen or harmed. Kid, as a thief who returns what he steals and generally doesn’t do more than minor property damage and creating a nuisance is probably a nice change of pace.

“Easy for you to say,” Kaito says, choosing to make his tone closer to teasing than accusative. “Every heist is high stake for me.”

“Yes, well that’s what happens when one chooses a life of crime,” Hakuba says drily.

“Ah, but I’m fairly certain that crime chose me,” Kaito says. One, because technically he didn’t choose to be Kid, the original Kaito did. Two because both his parents turned out to be thieves (and wasn’t Kaa-san a revelation?) so Kaito becoming one was probably inevitable.

Hakuba side eyes him.

Kaito laughs because he can’t help it. It starts out sincere but feels hollow a few seconds later because, well, he didn’t choose anything. It’s not actually funny even if Hakuba’s expression was. He ends up laughing harder, an edge of hysteria there that he hopes Hakuba won’t notice.

“It wasn’t that funny,” Hakuba says with a sigh.

“Ah,” Kaito says, doubled over his knees and giggling, “but Hakuba your face is always funny.”

Hakuba rolls his eyes at him and pointedly turns back to working at his homework.

Kaito lets the laughter peter out and lounges on his bed. Shit, he’s still not okay is he? He needs to get over this. Everyone else has more or less.

“You want to stay for dinner?” Kaito offers to Hakuba’s back. He might as well extend a hand of friendship back. There’s only so many people who know all his secrets in the world after all.

o*O*o

A memorial tablet quietly joins Toichi’s and Kaito and his mother never address its existence, but Kaito sees incense and a chocolate bar left by it more than once.

He still doesn’t ask about the body. It’s either buried or cremated or even still in the glass case in Agasa’s house, but something has happened on his mom’s end. It’s enough that the original Kaito is being mourned. It’s enough that his mother smiles at him and treats him like her son.

Kaito leaves his own offering once, but it feels weird to leave something for someone who is basically him. He promises to fulfil the original Kaito’s goals and to try and live the life Kaito would have wanted, which aren’t exactly hard promises to make since it’s what he wants too. It’s the right thing to do though. He needs some sort of resolution to this, and he’s probably not going to get more than a prayer over a home shrine.

Life keeps going on, and Kaito has to accept he’s going on with it.

o*O*o

Kid grins down at a terrifying child. Edogawa Conan, a detective indeed. He probably shouldn’t feel happy to see Conan again, especially not when he has that terrifying smirk on his face, but Conan is interesting and different and Kaito’s due for a new distraction. Another detective entering the field works.

Conan lights up fireworks, drawing police attention like a brat. Point to him. But.

Kaito grins and pulls out a radio, watching Conan’s smirk turn into surprise as he directs even more attention to himself.

He’s never been one to back down from a direct challenge.

Watching Conan’s eyes widen with realization as they’re swarmed with police officers is priceless.

Kaito slips away knowing that this is only the start.

o*O*o

Kaito lays back on Hakuba’s couch, his life forever changed these days because he’s willingly going to detectives’ homes. “Hakuba, do you know an Edogawa Conan?”

“No?” Hakuba looks up from his reading. “Should I?”

“Just curious. Ran into a scary-sharp elementary school student calling himself a detective, so I wondered.”

Hakuba hummed. “I haven’t heard any rumors about child detectives, but there are a few famous teenage detectives in Japan. Namely I remember a Kudo Shinichi living around Beika, and Hattori Heiji in Osaka. There are a few others, but those are the ones who have had the most publicity lately.”

“Huh.” Kudo Shinichi. Wasn’t he Edogawa’s cousin? Interest in poking their nose into things must run in the family.

“There’s some rumors of a detective gaining some fame for solving cases supposedly in his sleep, but that seems rather…”

“Improbable at best?” Kaito finishes.

“Yes.”

“You know what would be funny? If someone’s puppeteering this guy. Sure he solves the case in his sleep, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and all that.”

Hakuba rolls his eyes like he does at most of Kaito’s odd thoughts. “That’s about as likely as sleep-solving cases.”

“But you admit it would be funny.”

“Sure,” Hakuba says. “Although why anyone would want to use someone else and give them the credit, I don’t know.”

“You don’t use your imagination enough, Hakuba. Maybe the other person’s hiding their identity because they’re in danger. Or maybe they don’t look believable. Or… I don’t know, maybe they’re a spirit. Weirder things have happened.”

“I’ll stick to the bounds of scientific reason, thank you,” Hakuba says drily.

Kaito tosses a ball of paper at him. “Spoilsport.”

“Whatever shall I do in the face of your disappointment.”

“Read apparently.”

Hakuba smiles, one of his real smiles instead of a smirk. It looks a lot better on him. Kaito sighs and mulls over Conan a bit more. It was a bit too much to hope for Conan to have a reputation already. He is just six after all.

“Well, keep your eyes peeled for six-year-olds who can work through a Kid note and are scarily accurate with kicked projectiles because I have a feeling Edogawa Conan is going to come up again in the future.”

“If I didn’t have so much case work taking me away, I could have met him,” Hakuba says.

He had been disappointed about missing Kaito’s heist, but Hakuba had picked up a serious case and was in and out of the country lately.

Kaito’s surprised how much he misses his presence at school or randomly dropping in on his home the way Aoko does. That’s probably why Kaito said yes when Hakuba invited him over for once.

“There’s a new lead that popped up in France,” Hakuba says with a sigh. “So I’ll be gone again next week.”

“How are you passing school? Between switching mid-year and then taking week chunks at a time to visit other countries…”

“I work ahead whenever I can manage,” Hakuba says. “Also, I’ve learned most of what’s being taught already. I admit I’m behind in Japanese literature though.”

“Is it the kanji?” Kaito never did ask how fluently bilingual Hakuba was.

“No,” Hakuba says, “My memory is fine for kanji. It’s the older terminology and idiomatic phrases that are occasionally a problem. I haven’t had the time to sit down and work through reading older novels much lately.”

“I’ll help you with Japanese lit if you help me work on my English accent,” Kaito says in English.

“Your current pronunciation is _American_ ,” Hakuba says with disdainful bite.

“Well? It’s a one-time only offer to get my English more British,” Kaito says.

Hakuba must really hate his Americanized English because he doesn’t even hesitate for more than five seconds before he caves. “Deal.”

It’s going to be worth the repetition of ‘L’ and ‘R’ sounds to be able to pull off Hakuba’s voice and linguistic ability someday. He hasn’t taken Hakuba’s place at a heist yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Not that he’s going to tell Hakuba that’s his reasoning.

“If you need me,” Hakuba says later, as Kaito’s leaving, “call. While Agasa-hakase can handle most injuries, at this point I’m probably more knowledgeable about how the bio-synthetics work and the minutia of your body.” He looks at Kaito seriously. “If you’re injured badly, I’ll be on the next flight back to Japan to help.”

Kaito blinks at him. He doesn’t know what to do with that kind of heartfelt declaration so he elects to ignore it completely. “Don’t die chasing your international criminal,” Kaito says. “I’d be left with a child as my biggest threat.”

Ignoring the gunmen of course. They haven’t discussed the gunman that shot Kaito down and honestly Kaito’s just waiting for Hakuba to ambush him with questions one of these days.

“You don’t give Nakamori-keibu enough credit.”

“Hakuba. _Ice skating_.”

“…Fair enough. Take care, Kuroba.”

Kaito gives a casual wave goodbye. He’s never been good at being sincere with emotions. By this point, Hakuba probably knows him well enough to understand that though.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halfway point!! Hope you're liking how things are unfolding, and thanks to everyone who has left comments!! They make me smile :)

“You’re here again,” Conan says to Kaito in Agasa’s kitchen. Yet again he’d walked right in like he lived there though from what Kaito’s gotten out of Agasa and Kaito’s put together from a bit of basic surveillance, Conan lives with a detective and his teenaged daughter for some reason. They’re not relatives, but they are friends of the Kudos apparently.

“I’m here again,” Kaito agrees. On the whole, being a robot isn’t any different than human with this body. But Kaito wasn’t kind to his body when he was human and he’s pretty sure he’s using his robotic body outside of the parameters it was built for. Hence why he wasn’t terribly surprised to find one of his fingers working a bit wrong after two back to back heists that required far too much climbing and manual dexterity to pull off. He probably had a lot of these sorts of tune ups to look forward to in life.

“Why are you here again?”

Kaito sips at orange juice stolen from a carton at the back of Agasa’s fridge. “Are you that disappointed to see me again? And here I thought we hit it off.”

“You don’t even live in Beika.”

“No, I live in Ekoda.” He crosses his legs, casually, still sipping orange juice. “Jii sometimes commissions Agasa-hakase to make things for him. I’m picking something up today,” Kaito says, which is technically true. It’s just not the whole truth.

“Where’s he at?”

“Workshop,” Kaito says. The Professor had taken a scan and was trying to figure out which fiddly bit of Kaito’s hand wasn’t working right before he had to cut Kaito open to fix it. Kaito wasn’t looking forward to that part. “The question is, why are _you_ here, little detective?”

Conan wrinkles his nose at him. “Don’t. That’s patronizing.”

Kaito almost snorts orange juice from his nose laughing.

“I’m here because I want to talk to someone who isn’t going to treat me like I’m five.”

“So you want them to treat you like you’re six,” Kaito teases.

“Are you always this annoying?”

“According to friends, I’m worse,” Kaito says with a winning grin. He gets a glare in response, but that’s fine.

“Kuroba-kun,” Agasa says, wandering into the room with a printout in his hand. “I’m not sure that—“

“You have a guest,” Kaito says smoothly over the Professor before he can spill Kaito’s secrets.

Agasa looks up, blinking at Conan in surprise. “Oh, S—Conan-kun, I didn’t hear you come in.”

Conan glances between the two of them, suspecting something is up but not having proof. “I needed to get away,” Conan says, shoulders slumping slightly.

“You’re always welcome here,” Agasa says. He’s very friendly and Kaito likes that about him, but it does mean he’s probably not getting his hand fixed today. Pity. If Hakuba were in the country he’d have him fix it.

“Are you done with the things for Jii?” Kaito asks, setting aside his empty glass.

“Er, yes but…” Agasa glances at the paper.

“It’s fine,” Kaito says. He plucks the paper from Agasa’s hands and magics it away before Conan’s nosey little eyes can catch a glimpse of it. “I’ll come back for the last one another time. Just let me know when you’re free.”

Agasa sighs. “Of course, Kuroba-kun. The gadgets for Kounosuke are on my desk.”

“Thanks.” Kaito flashes a smile making it just a tad wider at Conan’s suspicious frown. It takes all of thirty seconds to gather the parcels up and head toward the door. “See you later!” Kaito calls over his shoulder. He’s pretty sure he hears Conan asking if Agasa’s doing anything illegal on the way out, but that’s the Professor’s problem, not Kaito’s. Kaito will just have to come during hours when Conan will be busy. Even if it means skipping part of school.

o*O*o

“Edogawa is… hmm,” Hakuba says one of the next times Kaito sees him.

“Yeah,” Kaito agrees.

“And no one questions the presence of a child at a murder scene?”

“Yeaaaah.”

Hakuba shakes his head. “He’s brilliant, but the psychological effects of seeing that much of human brutality at a young age are concerning.”

“I agree, but what can you do? Most of the ones he runs into he’s not even looking for.”

They share a moment of silence. “Hattori Heiji on the other hand,” Hakuba starts in with a scowl on his face and Kaito cracks up because that’s the exact some face Hakuba’s made at Kaito plenty of times, only worse because it’s clearly personal offense. “Don’t laugh! He was unprofessional and lax in his methods and had the nerve to complain about _my_ methods!”

Kaito keeps laughing.

“You’re a terrible friend,” Hakuba grouses.

Kaito wipes away imaginary tears. “Oh, I would pay to watch you two interact. You’re two very different personalities.”

“It’s not his personality that’s the problem.”

Kaito snickers. “Uh huh.” He leans against Hakuba’s shoulder. “But you realize you were both shown up by an elementary school student right?”

Hakuba pushes Kaito away. “Terrible,” he repeats.

“You love me,” Kaito says.

“I love frustrating myself apparently,” Hakuba says with a small dose of humor. “Would you care to meet my hawk?”

“I’d be delighted,” Kaito says, letting Hakuba lead the way.

o*O*o

“Why is he such a little gremlin?” Kaito complains to Jii as Jii patches up scrapes and bruises from Kaito’s latest encounter with Edogawa Conan as Kid. “Normal children don’t jump off rooftops after wanted criminals, Jii.”

“He is…determined,” Jii says neutrally.

“You need to talk to Agasa about giving him a paraglider. That’s child endangerment. Also, what is up with a sleep dart watch and a freaking super-kick shoe? Does he want to accidentally kill someone?”

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” Jii says patiently.

“Ok, no, that kid gets shot at more than I do, so never mind, he needs the protection. It’s just obnoxious.”

“Might I suggest not thinking so hard on the matter?” Jii says.

Kaito frowns and points to his face. “Jii, he’s a threat. More than Hakuba and the task force kind of threat. He _hit me with a soccer ball_ and almost knocked me out. I’m more physically sturdy than an average human being. If I was anyone else I’d be unconscious and probably have a concussion. Instead I have a bruise and maybe a loose wire.”

Jii’s forced patience turns to concern. “Kaito-bocchama…”

“I had a blip when I got hit but it hasn’t happened since, so it probably just jarred things enough to mess with it. If my body does anything again I promise to go to Agasa and get it fixed. Or Hakuba. Is Hakuba even in Japan right now?”

“I believe he was last in France,” Jii says, which, yeah, there was the Golden Eye heist a few weeks ago and Hakuba had called from France, hadn’t he?

“Right. Anyway, I’ll be fine. I just have to plan harder. And think more outside the box. Something has to trip that kid up.”

Jii sighs. Kaito lets him finish putting bandages on his face.

o*O*o

Kaito is terrified, more than he has been in months. Nightmare probably knows his identity and definitely knows Jii’s and has him trapped like a rat. He has no illusion what waits him if he ever gets caught. At best he will make it to prison. Second best he will get shot before he makes it there. Worst, he will be experimented on and probably vivisectioned and Kaito values his skin and Jii’s too much to let that happen.

There’s none of his usual edge of manic joy in adrenaline rushes that heists usually hold. None of the satisfaction. He has earrings to steal and deliver to a third party and somehow he has to wiggle his way out of this after.

Nightmare has to be someone close, someone with power. There’s only so many options and all Kaito can come up with is that he’s probably someone on the inside, working directly with the police. How better to get away with things than from inside the system? The numbers in his head are adding up and Kaito can only come to one conclusion.

He kind of hates that Conan is right; his mind would make a decent detective if Kaito ever had the interest.

But Kaito’s in this for private reasons even if ultimately his goal will bring justice to more than just Toichi. He isn’t going to let a crooked Interpol agent get the upper hand.

“Magnificent,” Nightmare says as Kaito lands. “I was right to choose you. Your luck truly is good to escape that unscathed.”

Kaito keeps his face a neutral mask and tosses the Dark Knight earrings Nightmare’s way. “Here. As promised.”

“Oh?” Nightmare catches them, holding one up to the light. The opal glints, clearly not Pandora, not that Kaito truly thought it would be. “The spoils were to be split…”

Yeah, so Nightmare would have something else to hold over him, Kaito thinks grimly. As if he’d keep the gems on him when Nightmare could turn things against him still.

“Hmm, well you did well understanding the escape route I left you.” Nightmare says like this is a perfectly normal meeting, not blackmail.

“It’s exactly what you wanted, right?” Kaito says, forcing himself to hold casual, calm. “You did hear the Japanese police’s plans. You had everything in control to leave this path open.” Nightmare stills, something dangerous in the air. Kaito plays the card he’s drawn and hopes it’s enough leverage. “Isn’t that right, Interpol’s Jack Connery?”

Nightmare doesn’t even flinch, but there’s a slight pause before he scoffs and Kaito knows he’s right. “Please. I got my information from hacking the cameras.”

“Four hundred seventy one,” Kaito says.

“What?”

“The number of riot police. Your number was off. If you’d seen it from the cameras or heard it from police channels, you would know. But you were there. You counted them yourself and you counted wrong. You didn’t notice that one of the riot police was a girl pretending to be one of them.” He hopes he played this right. But Kaito can’t show any of the stress building in him. He’s Kid, untouchable and in control. “Knowing that, your disguise falls apart.”

Nightmare huffs and pulls off his mask. As expected, it’s Connery. Then he pulls out a gun, which… Kaito kind of expected but it doesn’t exactly help the tension. If he understands the situation right… Maybe he can talk him down.

“You think you’re the first one to realize?” Connery says. “Police around the world often don’t share all the facts. The only thing I trust is what I can put together with my own eyes.” The gun aims unwaveringly at Kaito’s head, and maybe Kaito could live through being shot in the chest. That’s all mechanical bits and synthesized flesh and organs. Replaceable things, provided he doesn’t shut down completely before he can be fixed. But his head is what makes him Kaito still, and getting shot there, he’d die for real. No more Kaito of any sort. “This time it backfired,” he says, “but that’s not a setback.”

“You kill the partners that figure you out,” Kaito says.

“And feed the police the information they need to catch my partners once I have what I need, no guns needed.” Connery says coldly. “But you don’t need to know anymore. The police will find one of the earrings on your corpse.”

“Your son,” Kaito says quickly. “You’d take a life for him. Because of his illness.” Connery stills again and Kaito knows he has him, at least for a little longer. “You’re planning to retire once you have enough funds for the surgery he needs.” He meets Connery’s gaze. “The thefts and partnerships are all for this, but you aren’t part of this life, not truly.” Part of Kaito laughs, because _he_ isn’t truly part of this life either, for all that he’s a wanted criminal. He doesn’t make any money off this. He doesn’t gain much of anything. All his connections are through his mother. Because of her criminal past more so than Toichi’s. “You’ll sell all the treasures you’ve gathered off, probably not even close to what they’re worth, and you think they won’t track that back to you? That they won’t wonder where you got your money for this surgery?” He goes for the last strike. “If you follow through, you’ll never take that mask off. Is that really the sort of legacy you want to leave for your son? A murderer and a thief?”

Kaito knows all too well what it’s like to find buried truths. At least Toichi hadn’t been a killer.

Nightmare’s hand trembles and he slips his mask back on. “It’s the only way,” he says. “If it means letting them see a Nightmare, then I’ll keep wearing this mask!”

Kaito tenses, ready to dodge when Kenta’s voice calls from far off.

“K-kenta?” Connery says, turning and taking a step back in shock.

Kaito sees his foot move into open space, knows he’s going to fall, and lunges forward. He can’t let someone die in front of him, not even when they’re threatening to kill him. Especially not when their son is just around the corner.

The gun slips from Connery’s hand and Kaito manages to latch on with his right hand. Immediately the full dead weight of an adult man wrenches his shoulder. Kaito can feel something break inside him. He’s more durable than a human, but he’s not made for sudden stresses to his joints. His wires making up his muscles and ligaments weren’t meant to take more than his bodyweight at a bad angle all at once. Still, Kaito tries to keep his grip on Connery and the damaged railing.

“Drop the jewel,” Kaito grunts because he can’t keep this grip long. “Grab on with both hands or you’re going to fall.”

“This is Kenta’s surgery,” Connery says with a panicked tone. “I can’t…”

Whatever is broken in his shoulder, arm, strains. It’s pins and needles all through it. His fingers twitch, losing responsiveness. “Just. Do it!” He can’t bring his other hand around, they’d both fall and—

Kaito’s fingers spasm and Connery’s grip on Kaito’s gloved hand fails, the glove sliding free of his fingers. Kaito can only stare in horror as he falls and strikes the ground with a sickening sound. Connery twitches, mumbles something and falls still, and Kaito can hear Kenta’s voice closer, closer.

No. No, no, he can’t just let him see his father in the mask…! Kaito aims, fires with his left hand, thanking the fact that he’s ambidextrous, and the mask goes sailing just in time for Kenta to run in.

His frantic cries haunt Kaito’s heels as he runs, down an arm and a glove. He can barely control the glider, but he does, flying almost aimlessly until the police are far behind.

Somehow he ends up at Hakuba’s home. He doesn’t remember walking there. His arm is static, like it’s asleep unless he jars it and then it’s a sudden flare of pain that he can’t control.

At least, he supposes, now he’s not being blackmailed.

Kaito laughs, a little hysterically, in the middle of Hakuba’s bedroom.

o*O*o

He has no idea how long he’s sitting there before Hakuba comes in, just that Hakuba makes his presence known by several English swears before crouching in front of him.

“Kuroba. Are you hurt?” Hakuba’s eyes rove over him, probably looking for blood. They would have found the gun and who knew how many rounds Nightmare had in it. Hakuba touches Kaito’s shoulder—the bad one—and Kaito flinches. Hakuba’s concern doubles. “Please, talk to me.”

“My arm,” Kaito says. “It’s not working. It broke something when…”

“When you tried to keep Connery, Nightmare, from falling,” Hakuba says, because of course Hakuba put things together from the scene Kaito left behind. “…Nakamori thinks there was a falling out and that both criminals escaped.”

Kaito laughs, then shuts his mouth because it still sounds hysterical. “You could call it that.” Falling certainly had happened! Shit. “I tried,” he says. “I did. I couldn’t—”

“Kuroba, I assume from what I saw he had you at gunpoint,” Hakuba says, keeping his calm. He reaches out again, touching Kaito’s right hand. The only reason Kaito knows he’s touching it is because he’s watching. “I’m sure you did everything you could.”

“He wouldn’t let go of the opals. If he had…”

“You might have both gone over the edge and died,” Hakuba says. “He weighed more than you do even with your metal bones. Worse, he might have ripped your whole arm off trying to climb back up.”

Kaito winces. It’s not a huge likelihood that would have happened, but clearly something in his design is faulty for it to break the way it did. “Kenta…”

“Rounded the corner and found his father dead,” Hakuba says bluntly. He lets Kaito’s hand drop, unbuttons Kaito’s suit jacket. Kaito lets him slide it off. Lets Hakuba’s fingers tentatively start on his shirt. “You couldn’t spare him that, but you did spare him the horror of finding out his father is the criminal he’s afraid of.”

“For now,” Kaito corrects. “I spared him for now.” Because truth always comes out. Either in closer police investigation of the scene or maybe later in life Kenta will find something like Kaito found something and all his assumptions of his father will be overturned. That’s if Kenta even lives that long. “His illness. The surgery he needs…”

Hakuba pauses on the last button. Kaito knows he’s probably looking at the scars. Kaito has a lot of them, and this new synthetic skin still forms scars even if it’s not as bad of ones as real skin. “Connery probably had life insurance,” Hakuba says finally. “If nothing else, that should cover the cost for the surgery. It’s too soon to say what will happen to Kenta though.”

Kaito remembers the numb days after his father died. How the funeral had been awful, the memory of the moment his father died seared into him and how he hadn’t been able to sleep for weeks without nightmares. How his mother had died a little inside too and never quite been the same after. He’s pretty sure Kenta only had his father. He feels Hakuba peel the shirt from his skin in a distant way. His mind’s replaying in perfect clarity the moment of horrified fear on Connery’s face as the glove slipped free.

Stabbing pain jabs through his arm and Kaito flinches, hissing expletives under his breath.

“Sorry,” Hakuba says, reversing the movement he’d done to Kaito’s arm. “Sorry.”

“Ow.” Kaito’s so tired of feeling scared of hurt or wrong. He lets his head fall forward onto Hakuba’s chest knowing that Hakuba won’t push him away at least. Hakuba’s breath and heartbeat are steady in his chest. Hakuba’s hands are careful in their touch. He can feel them a little, like pinpricks in the static, but the sharp pain doesn’t repeat.

“It looks like there’s probably some tears and broken wires,” Hakuba says, pressing places on Kaito’s arm to test what would be tendon responses in a human. Kaito watches his fingers twitch and curl without his command numbly. “But I’m concerned that there might be some major damage to what consists of your nervous system…” Hakuba presses Kaito’s hand. “How much of this can you feel?”

“Not much. It feels like when your arm falls asleep before it starts getting circulation back, sort of staticky and bits of pins and needles.”

“…Put that most likely major nervous system damage. I’m… not terribly confident on my ability to fix that.”

Kaito nods, face rubbing against Hakuba’s collarbone. “It’s fine. I’ll manage somehow with however much you can do.” He has a vague feeling that Hakuba’s hand tightens at that and his breathing stills for a few seconds before breath hisses through his teeth.

“I’ll endeavor to do my best. It might be a good idea to go to Agasa-hakase’s place to use his equipment though. I’d use my grandfather’s labs, but it’s better not to be seen doing dubious scans and research in public.”

Kaito hums. Hakuba’s hands move to better support him as Kaito stops caring about what this looks like and goes limp against him.

“Kuroba?” Hakuba says hesitantly.

“No child,” Kaito says, barely audible, “should see their parent die. It messes with your head. Connery was going to kill me but…” Hakuba’s warm and solid and present. When was the last time Kaito was hugged? His mother a month ago when she finally decided it was safe to leave him alone again? Kaito’s tired. A robot shouldn’t get tired, but he is in so many ways. “There are people I’d like to get revenge on,” Kaito says finally, “but even them I don’t wish dead.”

“That’s because at your heart you’re a good person,” Hakuba says. “Irritating, egotistical, and possessing an infuriating habit of flaunting the law, but you care about others and show it. You have your lines in the sand and those lines don’t involve sacrificing others.”

“…Thanks Hakuba.”

“Of course.” He clears his throat awkwardly. “Would you care to spend the night? I could accompany you to Agasa-hakase’s home tomorrow morning.”

Kaito pictures staying here, in Hakuba’s luxury. Maybe even curling in his bed together because the idea of sleeping alone isn’t all that appealing right now. But he kind of wants to go home and hide in his dovecote and let fifteen birds land on him until their coos drown out the emotions in his head.

“Thanks, but I think I’ll go home.” Kaito pulls away and Hakuba looks at him with worry. Like the friend he’s become. Kaito pulls up his walls again because he can’t go crumbling to ash now. “I’ll meet you at the Professor’s tomorrow.”

“Do you need a ride home?”

Kaito shakes his head. He wants—needs—space to clear the mess inside him. Walking will give him a bit of the time that will take. “I can manage.”

“At the very least change clothes,” Hakuba says, and Kaito realizes he’s kneeling there without a shirt still.

It’s kind of funny. Kaito would laugh but yeah, that would probably lead to tears and he doesn’t want to cry.

Hakuba moves away and digs through his closet before coming back with an oversized sweater. It’s soft and surprisingly casual for Hakuba. Kaito slips it on and mechanically folds up his jacket, shirt and cape before collapsing his hat to add to the pile. They fold up smaller than they look like they possibly could, converting the glider harness mechanism into a bag to disguise all of it. Hakuba watches the process with interest and Kaito will probably regret showing him how it works another day. He’s too tired to care right now.

Kaito goes to the window without another word.

Hakuba catches his good hand before he can climb out of it. “Be safe? Please?” he says.

Kaito manages a smile. “I will.”

Neither of them get much sleep that night.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is about the point where the characters decided they were in control and I was just their puppet. Things went in directions I didn't anticipate from there.

The next morning comes too soon and not even coffee can make Kaito feel alive. He’s wondered since learning he’s a robot how much of what he metabolizes—from food, to caffeine, to painkillers—actually affect him and how much is placebo, but he still doesn’t have clear markers. At any rate, Kaito starts the day feeling like he’s gone a few rounds with a pack of feral tanuki. There’s bruises developing along his shoulder and chest, and around his right hand. Expected, but unwelcome reminders of the night before. Kaito’s lucky it’s a weekend, and he leaves a quick message for the Professor that he’s headed over.

It never fails to amaze him how easy it is to hide things. Tuck his limp hand in his pocket, angle his arm a certain way, bam, no one notices that his arm isn’t functional, let alone that it’s bruised like hell. Kaito knocks on the Professor’s door as he lets himself in, bypassing the gate altogether. “Hakase~!” Kaito calls in a fake-cheerful voice. “I’m here to borrow your equipment.”

No answer, so Kaito shuts the door, toes off his shoes, and pads down the hall. It’s not like he isn’t invited. He has standing permission to come and go if he needs maintenance, he just usually goes to Hakuba first when Hakuba’s in the country for little things.

“Is anyone ho—” Kaito cuts off as he turns into the kitchen and meets the alarmed, wide eyes of a child. “Oh. Hello,” he says.

The girl stares at him like she’s looking at a ghost. (Is the body still downstairs? _Is_ she actually looking at him like he’s a ghost?)

“You’re new,” Kaito says after a moment of increasingly uncomfortable staring. “Is Agasa-hakase here or…?”

The girl doesn’t answer but her hand twitches in a way that Kaito’s seen cops move when he startles them. Like she’s looking for a weapon. That’s not a normal reaction for a child.

“Ai-kun, I think I found the—oh,” Agasa says, stopping in the kitchen doorway behind Kaito. “Kuroba-kun.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t get my message saying I was coming,” Kaito says lightly. The girl relaxes slightly seeing them interact, but she’s still looking at him like he should be dead. Not exactly a great feeling. “Hakuba’s on his way a bit later. Need to do some tests and uh… fixing.”

Agasa looks at him closer, trying to pinpoint what’s wrong and lands on the arm Kaito hasn’t moved at all despite his habit of talking with his hands.

“So, another wayward child?” Kaito asks, tipping his head toward Ai.

“Ah… This is Haibara Ai. I’m looking after her for the moment.” Agasa looks at the girl. “Ai-kun, this is Kuroba Kaito. He’s a friend.”

“He looks like…”

“Ah, he does look a bit like Shinichi-kun.”

“No,” Ai says looking hard at Kaito. “He looks like the boy in the basement.”

Kaito pales. Great, now they both look like they’ve seen ghosts. “He’s still there?” he hisses at Agasa. “I thought Kaa-san…” Wait. “You let a little kid find that in your basement?!”

Ai’s shoulders hunch and Agasa looks nervous. “Er.”

“You have a lab that blows up on the regular! Two labs, even!” Kaito shakes his head. “But I guess that doesn’t mean much considering you gave a six year old a paraglider.”

Agasa looks sheepish. “Ah, that was…”

“If you plan to say you didn’t think he’d jump off buildings with it, I call bullshit. What else is there to paraglide from in Tokyo?” Kaito makes half a dramatic gesture, foiled by his dead arm. “I’m surprised you haven’t given him a working Taser considering how much trouble he gets into.” Kaito recognizes the expression of a man getting ideas and realizes he should probably just cut his losses; Agasa is going to make scary things for Conan whether he should have them or not.

“It’s better to provide something safe,” Agasa offers, “than having Conan-kun come up with something on the fly.”

Kaito pictures Conan leaping off the roof after him without a paraglider and yeah, no god, that’s… He winces. He doesn’t doubt Conan would do it if he thought he’d survive. Conan’s just crazy and driven enough.

“You know Conan?” Ai says, sharply.

Kaito sighs. “We’ve met a few times, yes. Not sure if he likes me or hates me honestly.” More important than Conan— “Why did anyone find that in your basement?” Kaito says to Agasa unhappily. Agasa was supposed to hide the body. Literally. And all the rest of the research and yet a six year old managed to find his corpse.

“I was exploring,” Ai says before Kaito can grill Agasa anymore. “The real question is why is there someone who looks exactly like you dead in Agasa-hakase’s basement?”

“Why is there _what?”_ Conan’s voice says from the hall.

Kaito runs a hand down his face. Fuck. He pastes a smile on his face as Conan all but runs into Agasa’s legs before skidding to a stop. “Hello, again,” Kaito says.

Conan gives him a once over and turns to Agasa. “Who’s dead and what happened to his arm?”

Agasa looks helplessly at Kaito and Kaito honestly just wants to say fuck it. He’s exhausted, emotionally drained, and down an arm. Hakuba’s going to be here in the next half hour and there are two children with scary-sharp stares and too-old eyes boring into him. Agasa can’t lie for shit and there is no way Conan is going to ignore the words ‘dead body’. Also Ai’s clearly seen it. To go with the highly illogical truth and have them think he’s joking or come up with a more plausible lie?

“About a year ago I died,” Kaito says cheerfully. “And got replaced by a robot twice over. And now my corpse is in a freezer despite me thinking for months that it’d been properly dealt with. Meanwhile I wrecked the hell out of my arm trying to catch the dead weight of a man almost twenty kilos heavier than me from succumbing to gravity and still watched him die last night.” He smiles brighter. “But how is your week going?”

Even Agasa looks at a loss for words.

Kaito laughs. “But no, there is a body in the basement, we’re related, and he’s there because I guess my mother decided not to cremate him after all. My arm I hurt messing around and I was going to use Agasa-hakase’s equipment to scan it to decide if I need to get actual medical help or not.”

Thank goodness Hakuba didn’t just walk in right after or Kaito would really be pissed off at the world.

“Hakase,” Conan says. “What the fuck?”

“Oh, wow, should you be using that kind of language?” Kaito says.

“You, shush,” Conan says, pointing at him. “Why are you hiding a body in your basement?”

“Because sometimes life is complicated, you can’t go through official channels and apparently none of us can handle properly corpse disposal,” Kaito says, feeling seventy, not the mental seventeen that he is.

“I didn’t ask you,” Conan says.

“It was a favor,” Agasa blurts.

“…Are you covering up a murder?”

“No!” Agasa says looking alarmed.

“I mean technically?” Kaito says, head tilted to the side. “But they guy that did it is dead already so…”

Now Conan looks at him. “Are _you_ covering up murder?”

“No. I’ve never killed anyone,” Kaito says seriously. “And the person that killed the body downstairs was killed by someone else. There’s a police file on it and everything, unsolved as it is. They just didn’t find the other body and I did.”

“And you didn’t even file the death?”

Kaito stares him down. Ai has a contemplative look on her face, sharp and seeing too much in a way that reminds him uncomfortably of Akako at her worst.

“You’re exactly alike,” she says after a moment. Then, “What’s it like to die?”

“Haibara,” Conan says, annoyed. “You don’t really believe that—” Conan stops, meets her eyes.

“There’s weirder things in the world,” she says. “Well, Kuroba-san? If you really are Kuroba-san.”

Kaito honestly didn’t expect them to believe the robot stuff. Conan is all about logic, and Ai… well, he doesn’t know her, but she doesn’t look like the type to believe it either.

“We can always go to the basement and compare,” she says and Kaito shudders.

“No. No, I’d really rather not.” He doesn’t need another panic attack.

“Are the wires there for a reason?”

“I never asked.”

She looks to Agasa. Agasa looks terribly uncomfortable. “Ah… It wasn’t clear, but I think they track brain waves.”

“He’s dead,” Kaito says.

“Er. Mostly dead.”

What the fuck. Kaito freezes, going over everything and just. No. It would explain why the body’s still there but. “There’s no pulse. Or breath. How the hell can there be brainwaves?” He’d compared it to stasis or a cryo pod. He’d checked the body for signs of life and there hadn’t been any. “He’s cold.” He hadn’t decomposed.

“I don’t entirely understand it myself,” Agasa says apologetically. “The container is oxygenated though…”

The hiss of air. The seal on the glass. That made sense but what…?

“So he’s not dead,” Kaito says dully.

“He’s more or less dead,” Agasa corrects.

“Except his brain which is the root of the self, in which case, _he’s not dead._ ” Kaito crouches down in the middle of the room and his dead arm flops out of his pocket and he can’t even care. “What the hell.” He’s not brain dead which could mean that he could be fixed—revived—but there’s no pulse and he’s been in the chamber for a _year_. Is it like a coma where the brain shuts down or did the bastard mad scientist experiment on people before and find a way to keep parts of them alive? What did this mean for Kaito?

“Kuroba-kun,” Agasa says, concerned.

“Sorry,” Kaito says, distantly. “Just having a crisis. Gimme a sec and I’ll be fine.” He takes a breath. “Is it possible to revive him then?”

The silence is awkward. Kaito looks up to Agasa’s apologetic face.

“That’s a no then, or not with current technology. Okay. That’s why Kaa-san has a shrine and is in mourning but there’s still a shred of hope, so she didn’t cremate the body. Okay.” Another breath. “I wondered why the hell he even kept the body in the first place back then. Usually you’d dispose of it. He had what he wanted, right, so no more fleshy human bits needed.” Then the realization comes. “He needed his brain because that part was still experimental.” The robot that hadn’t had empathy or morals. Kaito who is a perfect, or close enough, copy. Which of the two of them had actually come first? “It’s so he could cross reference and tweak what he needed to.” Kaito feels sick.

Ai looks at him like a scientist would, picking him apart with her eyes, but Conan looks as uncomfortable as Kaito feels, eyes drawn to Kaito’s dead arm as he supposedly slots in Kaito’s earlier words as truth.

“You’re a robot,” Conan says slowly.

“He’s a person,” Agasa defends, which is pretty nice of him considering how much trouble Kaito keeps causing for him.

“A little of column A, a little of column B,” Kaito mumbles.

“You eat,” Conan says, probably replaying their previous meetings in his head. “You get injured.”

Kaito tugs at his neckline to show the edge of the bruising. “I’m injured now. It’s…” How the hell does he explain what he is? “Advanced bio-mechanics? Synthetic yet accurate replication of human biology without the actual biology?” He shrugs his good shoulder. “I think I was an experiment on how close you can come to copying a human body via technology, but it’s not like I can actually ask since the person who made me is dead.”

“Murdered,” Conan says. “By you?”

“I just said I’m not a murderer,” Kaito says.

“Then…”

“There were two robots,” Kaito says, “and one of us was less human than the other. I didn’t realize for months… The other, it lacked morals, ethics, a concept of mortality, and an understanding of consequences. I’m starting to think that it was the prototype to me.”

“If you’re not an it, shouldn’t the other robot be a he as well?” Ai says, looking fascinated and disturbed in equal measures.

Kaito frowns. “I don’t know. We can argue personhood all day, but as far as I’m concerned I’m as much Kuroba Kaito as that body downstairs is.”

“You can’t declare him dead because you’re living his life,” Conan says, finally voicing it.

“Yeah.”

And that’s two more people who know his secret. Two more and children at that. Kaito’s hand starts to shake again.

“Hakase, I need to,” Kaito stands and waves a hand. He needs to be away. He needs to go up where the air is clear and the sky is open.

Agasa steps aside and Kaito flees. Up the stairs, up to the roof and the cloudy sky. It’s not raining though. That’s good enough. Kaito moves to the edge of the roof and tamps down the panicked feeling. He’s not Kid right now, which he wishes he was because it would make compartmentalizing so much easier, but if Kaito pulls out Kid, Conan will definitely notice and he’s let one secret slip today already. He doesn’t need two.

o*O*o

His phone buzzes in his pocket, but Kaito doesn’t look to see who messaged.

Maybe Kaito messed up his head, not just his arm. Maybe that’s why he can’t get a grasp on his usual defenses. He’s just broken, like a dropped cellphone, all splinters and cracks across its screen. _Breathe, Kaito_ , he tells himself.

He should have handled that differently. Spun a pretty lie and put on a sad face. Made up something about a twin and an accident and wrapped everything up all nice and neat and believable instead of blurting out the truth. But it’s a bit too late for that. He should have outgrown this panic. He’s usually so good in stressful situations these days, the masks coming at automatic. He’s not sixteen and fumbling through his first heist anymore, or facing a gun for the first time, or even the first time someone saw through his bluffs.

There’s footsteps on stairs and Kaito feels a flash of anger. Can’t he have a breakdown in peace?

The masks, finally, come, and when the door opens, Kaito has a neutral expression at the ready. “You know,” he says when he sees Conan, “I wasn’t even pretending to be subtle about needing some space at the moment.”

“You were having a panic attack,” Conan shoots back. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Kaito internally rolls his eyes. Sure. The added benefit of learning more, observing and picking Kaito apart didn’t factor into it at all.

“Are you alright?” Conan asks when Kaito doesn’t move.

“What do you think.”

Conan winces. “No, then.” A beat. “I looked at the body.”

Kaito closes his eyes. “Of course you did.”

“It should have decomposed by now.”

“I know,” Kaito says.

“Ai wants to know if she can study it.”

Kaito gives Conan an incredulous look. Really? _Really?_ Conan lifts his hands, placating.

“Look. She gets biological stuff. Maybe she could find a way to…”

“He’s as good as dead,” Kaito says with a sigh. He can’t keep that blank mask up. “I don’t remember dying. I barely remember being kidnapped, just getting hit over the head on my way home from school.”

“…I almost died recently,” Conan offers. “I stuck my nose into something I shouldn’t have and was caught. They hit me over the head and fed me a poison that should have killed me.”

“That sounds pretty awful.”

“I thought I was going to die and it hurt like hell. And now I’m here.” Conan says it like he’s in purgatory and he’s not sure if he’s going to trip into hell or climb back out into the world of the living. It’s a certain resigned tone that Kaito knows intimately. There’s a story behind those words that Conan isn’t telling, but Kaito isn’t owed it. Conan doesn’t have to tell him anything but he’s here anyway.

“I kind of wish I didn’t know.”

“Hm?”

“What I am. It was easier then.” He didn’t doubt his existence or have nightmares about his own corpse opening its eyes and condemning him. People in his life weren’t grieving and Kaito didn’t have to look himself in the eye in the mirror and know that he’s the one to survive, not the right Kaito.

Conan hums in agreement. “Easier isn’t always better though.”

“No?” Kaito sighs. “What would Haibara-chan want with my body? Why would she care?”

“Like I said, she’s good with bio chemistry. Something about the chamber is stabilizing the body and keeping the brain alive—for a year even—without decomposition or major cell regression. Understanding it could help people medically. And you…” Conan looks at Kaito’s arm. “If she understood you, she could figure out how to help with your problems too.”

“I already have someone working on understanding my inner workings,” Kaito says. “He’ll be here soon.”

“Not Agasa-hakase?”

“No. He’s fine with the smaller stuff. And technically he did most of piecing my leg back together after—just, no. It’s not his specialty and I know it.” Kaito touches his dead arm. “I don’t like being a lab rat.”

Conan wrinkles his nose. “I don’t either.”

Kaito wonders what Conan’s experienced to have that uncomfortable expression on his face. He’s incredibly bright, and came out of nowhere. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think he could be an escaped experiment from a lab for all Kaito knows. Same with the scary-sharp little girl downstairs. They both feel older than they look.

The phone in Kaito’s pocket starts vibrating again, a call instead of a text. He sighs, fishing it out. Hakuba. ”Yeah?” Kaito says rudely as he answers.

“…Well I suppose that answers the question of how you’re feeling today,” Hakuba says mildly. “I wanted to let you know that I’m almost to Agasa-hakase’s home, and that you’re welcome to start in on scans if you’re already there.”

Conan is watching Kaito closely and Kaito keeps his face neutral. “I’m here. There’s also other people here.”

“…Would it be best to come back later?”

“Too late for that. They already know what’s going on. I’ll explain when you get here.”

Hakuba is quiet for a moment, his mind probably racing to try and guess who knows or why Kaito has let his secret spill. “Stay safe,” he says finally, hanging up.

“That voice sounded familiar,” Conan says.

Kaito purses his lips. “Yeah, because you’ve met him before.” Kaito moves for the door. “Come on. You probably know where Agasa-hakase keeps his x-ray machine.”

“He has one?” Conan asks.

“Or maybe you don’t. Maybe he got that after he agreed to be one of my emergency medi-mechanics.”

“How often do you need fixing?”

“Honestly? Not often.”

They reach the lab to find Ai bent over a microscope with what is clearly a small swatch of Kaito’s synthetic skin next to her. Kaito falters half a step, uncomfortable in a way he wasn’t with Hakuba. It could be because he only just met her. Or there might be something deeper his instincts are saying.

Ai glances up, but remains intent on the sample. Agasa looks vaguely guilty in the background, as he should considering he just let her look without asking Kaito. “Did you know,” Ai says in a monotone, “that your skin has thousands of micro-receptors and nano-bots that work like human nervous receptors?”

“I vaguely remember being told something like that,” Kaito says, not giving her a look as he makes a beeline for the x-ray machine. “Apparently that’s how I can still feel pressure and pain and heal surface wounds.”

“It’s not clear how they network to transmit anything,” Ai says. “But it is fascinating. I have to wonder if this sort of technology is bridgeable for human biology. Imagine the benefits of being able replace missing skin.”

“Or bones, or whatever,” Kaito agrees. “Yeah. Lots of potential. All I have to worry about is being vivisected in the name of progress.”

Both Ai and Conan shoot him unreadable looks. “Don’t even start,” Kaito says. “People hear robot, they think machine, not a person, let alone the fact I can feel pain. It could be life changing tech, yeah, but I’m not dying for it to get shared.” He can’t do the scan one handed, let alone properly position everything. He looks at Agasa and the Professor hurries to help. The process barely takes a minute and it makes a digital image. So much easier than dealing with the machine and bulky film that Kaito owns.

Then Agasa makes him do another scan with the injured arm held out and, yeah, ow. Kaito grits his teeth as pain stabs through twitching fingers until he can thankfully let his arm become so much dead weight again.

Somewhere the doorbell rings. Hakuba. Agasa goes to get him and Kaito pulls up the scans, feeling a little annoyed as both unnatural children come to look at it behind him.

“What the hell?” Conan says when the image comes up.

“That’s about what I thought. Do an x-ray for damaged ribs only to find this,” Kaito mutters. He pulls up the other scan, and the control scans they took ages ago for comparison. Hmm. There are definitely bits and pieces not fitting together right. At least a dozen wires aren’t in the right places and the silvery shadow that indicates his nervous system is all but broken in his shoulder. Which explained the no-pain all-the-pain back and forth depending on if he managed to get things to line up properly.

Kaito’s whole arm is going to have to be cut open. “Dammit.”

“Hmm, that does seem pretty damaged,” Ai comments, studying the fine lines of wires that were far from their proper neat configurations.

Hakuba’s not going to like this at all. It was bad enough the time Kaito had to have his finger fixed… It’s also going to hurt like hell the second the nervous system is repaired. Kaito shudders as Agasa leads Hakuba into the room.

Hakuba stops two steps in. “Edogawa-kun?”

“Hakuba-san?” Conan says, equally shocked. “You’re the ‘medi-mechanic’?”

Hakuba looks past him to Kaito. “Kuroba?” he prompts, wanting an explanation.

“They found the body,” Kaito says in a tone of voice that doesn’t let on that this is traumatic for him at all. Of course that just makes Hakuba look concerned because Hakuba’s starting to know him too well. Kaito can trace the split second confusion before realization crosses Hakuba’s face. It’s swiftly followed by a grimace. “Yeah,” Kaito says, “I know.”

“And you _told_ them?”

“If you think he,” Kaito points an Conan, “is going to let anything go after hearing the words dead body, then clearly he didn’t leave a deep enough impression last time you met.” He takes a breath. “Also this may have been the first time anyone told me the body isn’t completely dead, so I may or may not have reacted badly.”

“Oh.” Yes, oh. Kaito’s a little annoyed because Hakuba probably knew that the whole time. Or at the very least looked into the matter because he’s definitely read all of the available notes by this point and Kaito has to believe something about the body is in there somewhere.

Kaito forgives him though. It’s not like he was the only one not saying anything. And it was Kaito’s own fault for not asking. He sighs and waves Hakuba over. “I took scans. A lot is fucked up, so you’re going to have a lot of work to do.”

Hakuba frowns, but isn’t surprised. He had looked at it last night after all. “Let me look. Also, take off your shirt.”

“Hakuba, asking me to strip with an audience,” Kaito says, trying to lighten his Titanic-heavy mood.

“Believe me, Kuroba,” Hakuba says absently as he stops in front of the monitor, “if I ever ask you to strip for real, it won’t be with an audience.”

Kaito blinks and Conan chokes. Ai on the other hand gets a slightly disturbing smile that Kaito doesn’t want to think too hard about. “You say that like it’s a possibility,” Kaito says, working on shirt buttons. He might give Hakuba a hard time, but he is going to have to take the shirt off.

“With you, anything is a possibility.” Hakuba could have come off flirty, but instead it sounds more resigned than anything. Kaito’s worn him down after so long orbiting each other’s proximities.

Kaito laughs despite himself and, from the twitch of Hakuba’s lips, that was the intent. “Fine, fine, one half-naked magician, coming right up.” He could have tried a quick change; it’s not like it is impossible for him to do with one arm. But he knows it would probably just make the damage worse, so Kaito takes his shirt off methodically instead as Hakuba looks over the finer details of the scan.

Conan looks immediately at the discolored bruising along his arm before skipping to tell-tale scars, shoulder bullet wound included. Agasa makes a sympathetic sound and comes over to examine it.

“No broken bones,” Kaito assures him. There’s finger shaped bruises on his hand.

“The angle you caught the weight must have been bad,” Agasa says.

Kaito wrinkles his nose. “Didn’t have much of a choice for all the good it did.” The bruising spreads to his shoulder where it’s been wrenched, and a few lesser ones across his chest from the glider harness and from the process of throwing himself flat to catch Connery in the first place.

“Well,” Hakuba says from the monitor, “Your arm, hand and wrist all have points which need to be re-anchored properly, which could take a bit, but should heal fine. Going forward I would like to look into something a bit sturdier if possible though,” Hakuba mutters. “With the amount of stress you put on yourself, this could be a reoccurring problem. Your shoulder is going to be more complicated. The nerve filaments are complicated and I still am figuring out their complexities.” He grimaces. “In theory I can reconnect them fine, but I can’t guarantee that it won’t re-break if you move the wrong way. And the last thing you need is your arm to suddenly go unresponsive.”

Kaito imagines it going dead in the middle of a heist instead of during his getaway and winces. Yeah, that’d be pretty bad. Leaving aside that it would make all of his tricks harder in general, even in his day to day life.

“I can fix it for today, but I might have to trial and error a more permanent solution,” Hakuba says, clearly displeased that his skills don’t meet up with his expectations.

“It’s better than what I could do on my own,” Kaito says. “I’m not gonna complain.”

“Not now, perhaps, but you would later if your hand froze while conjuring a flower,” Hakuba says, knowing Kaito too well.

“I mean yeah, but that’s then and I’m talking objectively speaking, not specific moments.”

“You’d still complain because you’re you.” He says it with a lot more fondness than Kaito would expect to hear, but Kaito still makes a face at his back. “Take a seat, Kuroba. This is going to take a while.”

Kaito sits. He is dreading this, but it can’t be helped. Hakuba washes his hands and pulls out the scalpels and tools.

“Wait are you just. Going to cut him open?” Conan asks horrified. “While he’s awake?”

“Well, until he gets to my shoulder, I can’t feel much,” Kaito says pragmatically.

“I have painkillers for you just in case,” Hakuba says. He pulls out a syringe.

“Ooh, not pills,” Kaito says.

“How does that even work?” Ai asks.

“Well, digested painkillers seem to function more or less as they should, we assume because whatever composes Kuroba’s ‘brain’ at some level uses chemical receptors. It doesn’t work quite the same though. It doesn’t do much for bruising or inflammation, in part because there isn’t actually inflammation, just damage done to the synthetic dermal layers that needs to self-repair.” Hakuba snaps a pair of gloves on. “The injection is actually something I found in the original files the doctor had. He used it in his early tests when major changes needed to be made, like exchanging a limb for a better functioning one, and works less like a painkiller and more a disruptor that temporarily keeps signals from travelling through the synthetic nerve system.”

“I like thinking of it as a numbing agent, not something that could maybe turn my brain off,” Kaito says. It’s the first time it’s been used since Hakuba told him about it though.

“You only listened to half of what I told you when I discovered it, didn’t you?” Hakuba says with a sigh. “It’s not going to affect your ‘brain’ at all.”

“To be fair, I got the major parts. Like the fact that if I ever needed my leg bones replaced again, I wouldn’t have to _feel it happening_ ,” Kaito says pointedly.

Ai and Conan look sick at that.

“You might not want to stay for this,” Kaito says to them. “I know I’d leave if I could.”

“I could knock you out,” Hakuba offers.

“You need me to test the connection,” Kaito says with a grimace. They’d learned that there were only limited checks on correct mobility that could be done when his brain was offline.

“I’m staying,” Ai says, pulling up a chair like she’s intent on learning what she can, discomfort aside. Conan is a lot more hesitant. “Don’t tell me you’re squeamish,” Ai says to him. “You’ve seen mutilated bodies.”

“They were dead,” Conan says.

“I’ll take a live body to a dead one,” Hakuba says. “Stay or go, it makes no difference. Agasa-hakase, if you could assist?”

Hakuba injects Kaito’s shoulder and everything his collar bone to ribs goes numb in a way that’s pretty damn terrifying if Kaito lets himself dwell on it. He closes his eyes as Hakuba leans forward over his arm.

o*O*o

Hakuba narrates the process, which is both helpful and uncomfortable. It lets Kaito know how he’s progressing without having to look at least. Hakuba has to stop twice to retrieve different polymers from the mad doctor’s storage because Kaito managed to damage anchor points too badly to just reattach things. He gets about halfway through before he has Kaito try to move a finger, and it must work because he gets a pleased hum in return.

“How can he move when he can’t feel?” Ai asks.

“The pain receptors and parts that control motion are different things,” Hakuba says.

Conan has to leave around when Hakuba reaches Kaito’s elbow. Kaito can’t blame him. He’s feeling sick to his stomach, all psychosomatic, but no less real. There’s Hakuba and Agasa bent over his arm and a six year old adding commentary into the mix and so Kaito… unfocuses.

Everything is catching up to him. Last night is just a tipping point of an already precarious knife balance. The body just makes things fall faster. He’s going to crash again soon and he’s not sure how he’s going to pull out of it this time. He has people to pick him up. Jii, his mother, Hakuba even. But the bottom always hurts and it feels like he’s clawing his way up only to fall right back down.

He wants to be elsewhere, anywhere, somewhere feverishly planning another heist, scoping out a museum layout, practicing English and working a month ahead in his lessons so he can devote more time to his night life. Or running through buildings with Conan chasing him, or even Hakuba cuffing him with a smug look of triumph instead of the frown of concentration he has on his face as he leans over the raw, flesh-like mess that covers and surrounds the wires, piecing Kaito back together even as he takes him apart.

The breath catches in Kaito’s chest. He still has the control to let it out slow, no one the wiser to how close he is to jumping up and running for the mountains and screaming at the world.

“Almost done with your arm, Kuroba,” Hakuba says an age later. It feels like half the day has passed, but Hakuba has made good time and Kaito’s internal clock says that it’s not even been a full hour.

Kaito risks a glance. There’s neat stitching from wrist to elbow in precise cuts, Hakuba doing no more damage than necessary. He’s doing something with Kaito’s elbow that turns Kaito’s stomach and he has to look away. He can’t help the tiny sound that squeezes past his control.

Hakuba pauses to set a gentle touch to Kaito’s good hand. It would be more appreciated if it didn’t leave a tiny smear of Kaito’s blood. “If you need a break, we can pause…”

“Get it over with,” Kaito says.

He’s going to end up with an aversion to labs and sterile scientific spaces, isn’t he? Between waking in the doctor’s lab strapped to the table, being held down as his leg bone was replaced, getting cut open multiple times… Kaito swallows hard. He closes his eyes and tries to think up the most improbable illusions he might possibly be able to pull off. How big a thing can he make disappear? He can definitely out-do the clock tower heist.

That’s distraction enough until Hakuba gets to reconnecting his shoulder. Maybe the numbing effect had dimmed or maybe they had underestimated how working on the equivalent of a raw nerve was. Either way, Kaito knows exactly when the bits are actually connecting correctly because the pain is enough to make his teeth ache and his eyes register flashes of light that aren’t there right before his brain decides it’s going to do the fainting/reset thing and everything goes dark.

o*O*o

Kaito comes to still in pain, but a lot more bearable than the blinding electric pulse feeling before. It’s dark wherever he is and he has a moment of wanting to claw his way to fresh air and sky before he recognizes that he’s not trapped, he’s just in a bed with a curtain around it. His arm is in a sling again (of course it is) and it’s covered in bandages.

“I passed out,” Kaito grumbles. He’s supposed to have better control. How embarrassing. He runs a hand down his face. He feels clammy. He’s still not sure how that works; what use is sweat? If it’s even similar to human sweat.

Someone helpfully left Kaito’s phone and folded shit on the bedside table. There’s a message from his mother, another from Aoko, and a final one from Hakuba explaining that he had to leave but to call if he encounters problems. He also apologized for not getting the ratio right to block the pain, but honestly, Kaito can’t blame him for that. He couldn’t feel much before it was used so it’s not like he had any basis for comparison, or knowledge of how long it would last.

“You’d think,” he mumbles, “I could just plug a wire into my head and turn pain off.” But that would be the sensible thing. Kaito doesn’t even have input ports of any kind that he can find. The brain transfer helmet, if it hadn’t been destroyed, would be the key to how his brain worked probably. Or how to change things. Then again, it’s probably better to not mess with an experimental synthetic brain-like piece of technology. Kaito’s luck is great in general, but he wouldn’t test it and risk wiping his own brain or worse, change something that made Kaito Kaito.

He slides his phone into his pocket without answering messages and slings the shirt on over the sling. He can try to put it on later when he leaves.

Kaito pads on silent feet down Agasa’s hallway, away from the lab. There’s a TV on low, some news channel. He half expected to see Ai looking at samples or scans still, but she must have something else keeping her occupied for the moment. He pauses at the stairs.

Without conscious thought, he turns and heads back down the hall toward the door he doesn’t actually want to open. He opens it anyway. The pale light shows the glass box still working, a soft hum. Like a damn freezer.

He looks at it for a long moment from the doorway. He could unplug it. He could even cause the wall socket to short out and make it look like an accident, no one the wiser. Give Kaito a proper death instead of being Snow White in a glass coffin, perfectly preserved.

But he remembers looking down into that glass coffin and already knows he can’t. He tricked the other robot with his face into blowing its own—his own—brains out. But Kaito’s not someone who could kill himself. Not even a mercy killing.

Eventually someone will pull the plug.

It’s not going to be him.

Kaito turns away. He still can’t bring himself to look the body in the face again.

Agasa is in the living room watching the news. Ai is nowhere to be seen. Conan is curled on the far end of the couch, looking locked in his own mind, serious and contemplative.

Kaito clears his throat softly, leaning casually in the doorway.

Agasa jumps and Conan looks up a beat too slow, face blank. “Kuroba-kun! You should still be resting.”

“I’m fine,” Kaito says. “Well, as much as I can be. You did scans after to make sure everything worked out?”

Agasa looks uncomfortable. “We did. But Kuroba-kun—”

Kaito waves a hand. “It’s fine then. I’m sure Hakuba will give me a whole long lecture when he checks in later tonight. I need to get going.”

“You had major surgery,” Conan points out, face not letting on his thoughts. Which honestly is tell enough for Kaito. The kid has a decent poker face, but he’s no actor.

“And?”

“Kuroba-kun, you really should stay for observation at least until tomorrow,” Agasa says.

“I’d rather not,” Kaito says remembering how stir crazy he’d been last time he was forced to stay here. “As much as I’d love to raid your novel collection again, I just want to go home and pass out in my own bed.”

“Is your mother home?”

“Nah.” Kaito scrubs a hand through his already messy hair. “She’s back in Vegas again.” She’s going to be so mad that he got injured again. But it’s not like he can coordinate when he gets hurt to match up with when she’s home. “It’s fine. Hakuba’ll probably bust down my front door tomorrow if I even try to keep him away. I can handle the rest of today and tonight.” Hakuba’s very methodical and since he’s taken keeping Kaito functional as some private mission, he hasn’t skimped on keeping track on how Kaito’s body is functioning. Even halfway across the world he was asking for updates. If how he was with Kaito’s leg is any indication, he’s going to be insufferable about making sure Kaito’s arm heals perfectly.

Kaito’s grateful for that, really, he just hates being fussed over.

“You can’t even get a shirt on,” Conan says, judging.

Kaito levels him a stare. That? Is a challenge. It’s not a smooth, instantaneous process to get it on like usual, but Kaito still gets his arm in and out of the sling with minimal difficulty. It hurts like hell but it responds just like it should. Take that, detective brat.

Agasa sighs. “You really shouldn’t do that.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Kaito says, arm back in the sling, shirt on, and all hints of pain carefully locked out of his micro-expressions. He flashes a smile, testing that his masks will fall back into place. “I won’t push it anymore tonight, Professor, no need to look at me like that.” He gives Conan a nod. “See you around, little detective. Tell the scary mini-scientist not to go into any human experimentation, yeah?”

“I’ll pass it along,” Conan says, serious. Something in Kaito eases a bit. Good. Good. He could probably trust that chibi-Tantei and the Professor would keep mini-scientist from playing with the corpse for a while.

“See ya,” Kaito says with a purposely obnoxious wave.

If he gets hurt again tomorrow, he’s making Hakuba take him to his grandfather’s lab. Right now he can’t stomach being in Agasa’s home any longer than he has to be.


	7. Chapter 7

“What did you do to yourself _now?_ ” Aoko asks worry and anger all mixed into one volatile cocktail of emotion.

“Ahaha, well I was experimenting with a new smoke formula and the vial kind of exploded—”

“Kaito!” Aoko groans. “You shouldn’t be messing with chemicals!”

“Well now I know not to try _that_ combination,” Kaito says with a grin.

“Exploding things isn’t funny!” She waves a hand at Kaito’s arm. “Getting hurt isn’t funny either!”

“No, it’s not but it is a learning experience.” Kaito leans back in his desk chair. “Besides, I’m pretty good at first aid by this point, so it’s fine.”

From Aoko’s scowl, it is not fine, but unless she gets it into her head to drag him to a hospital, she can’t do anything about it.

“I can look his arm over later,” Hakuba offers like he isn’t already planning to do that as soon as school lets out. “I have a certification in several first aid courses.”

“Thank you, Hakuba-kun,” Aoko says. “At least one of you is taking things seriously.”

“I am taking it seriously,” Kaito complains. “It just isn’t as big of a deal as you’re acting.”

“We’ll certainly see later,” Hakuba says.

Kaito rolls his eyes and feels Aoko’s gaze linger on the two of them. Whenever Hakuba is in the country and in school he eats lunch with them these days. Sometimes even when Aoko’s eating with other friends, Hakuba sticking by Kaito’s side. Things have changed a lot since Hakuba discovered what Kaito is.

“You’re a lot closer lately, aren’t you?” she says to them contemplatively. “Good. I’m glad you’re not fighting anymore.”

“Who says we aren’t?” Kaito says. “Maybe we’re just being subtle.”

“Right,” Aoko says skeptically. “Because you two stopped arguing about Kid in class completely and I’ve seen Hakuba visit your house, Kaito.”

Kaito blinks. He hadn’t realized she’d picked up on that.

She waves away whatever protests start to build in his throat. “It’s fine. I’m glad you have another friend, Bakaito.”

He loves Aoko in that moment. Well, he always loves her, but she’s accepted him over and over again in the last few months and all the erratic ways he’s been acting even though he’s been doing his best to act like everything is fine. And she gets it. That Kaito can charm anyone, but that making actual friends is hard for him.

“Aww,” Kaito says dramatically. “You care.” He gives an eyebrow wiggle. “It’s almost like you like m—”

Aoko shoves a notebook in his face. “Shut up, Bakajto!” She’s blushing.

_Worth it_ , he thinks, grinning. He bumps shoulders with Hakuba, a comfortably friendly gesture. This moment is nice. He wishes every moment could be so good.

o*O*o

“Shit,” Kaito mutters under his breath. He dodges a soccer ball and a knock out dart in rapid succession. “Getting a little violent there, Tantei-kun,” he says.

Conan scowls, scanning for something else he can turn into a deadly projectile. Thankfully, on a mostly bare rooftop, there isn’t much to work with. Kaito’s at more of a disadvantage when these little showdowns happen in mansions with collections of knickknacks and whatnot just sitting around waiting to be weaponized. “You’re a thief,” Conan says. “It’s not like I can let you get away without trying.”

“Fair point.” Kaito tips his hat a bit. They’re at a stalemate. Conan has run out of projectiles—probably, unless that belt has been updated to have two soccer balls or Conan can hit him with the backup sleep dart—and Kaito still needs a few more steps to pull off his vanishing act; today the glider isn’t going to cut it. The wind is all wrong, the roof not high enough. At least the police are scrambling elsewhere, redirected by a wrong reading of his heist note. If Kaito’s lucky, they’ll find traces of the organization stalking Kaito’s heels at that location; the misdirection had been meant to lead them there.

“You’re really not like a child at all,” Kaito says conversationally. “I think you might be able to follow my thought process easier than Hakuba.” He grins. “What does that say about you I wonder?”

“Maybe you’re not as smart as you think.”

“Or… maybe your mind runs closer to a thief’s than you want to admit.” A step. Another. “Admit it, Tantei-kun you don’t follow the law in black and white. You’ve let me go before. And I’ve seen you lie and manipulate and trespass in your quest for truth and justice. Now what makes me so different from you?”

“I don’t know,” Conan says with heavy sarcasm, “maybe the stealing and running around with a secret identity?”

Kaito grins wide, another step closer. “You say that like ‘Conan’ isn’t a mask.”

Kaito means it in the way that Conan pretends to be an innocent child instead of the cynical, worldly prodigy he is, but Conan goes chalk white. And it occurs to Kaito that perhaps those words are truer than he thought.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Conan says, but his hand trembles slightly.

“Don’t you?” Kaito is almost within arm’s reach of Conan and he’s still not been darted.

Something in Conan’s face hardens and Kaito has a split second of his instincts screaming _get the fuck away_ before his knee is kicked hard enough to take him down and Conan has his dart watch aimed between Kaito’s eyes. Kaito doesn’t know if the anesthetic will even work on him, but there’s something terrifying and threatening on Conan’s face that has no place coming from a six-year-old. Kaito’s hat rolls away.

“ _What do you know,”_ Conan hisses.

Kaito looks up at him, unable to completely hide his shock, but careful to keep any fear from showing. He starts to move his hands to a non-threatening pose but freezes when Conan’s eyes narrow and his grip on his watch tightens. Kaito is suddenly, vividly, reminded of walking into Agasa’s kitchen and the girl, Ai’s shift from pale-with-fear to sharp-observation. Cornered creatures fight back hardest, as Kaito well knows. He swallows.

“I meant,” he says in a level, reasonable voice, “that you pretend to be a normal child and hide your skills when you aren’t. That you’re brighter than the detectives you work with and don’t take credit for cases you solve, let people think they solved it instead when you walked them through it, or even played voice to their Sleeping Detective.” Conan’s eyes demand more so Kaito keeps talking. “Your ‘Conan’ mask is a ‘gee, this sure is strange, I wonder why’ when your real self just says what you mean. I’ve seen enough of you by now to know when you’re faking. Also you’re a terrible actor.”

Conan keeps staring and Kaito gets the distinct feeling that he’s waiting for Kaito to say something in particular, but he can’t fathom what.

“You have almost never pulled the little kid shtick with me since I met you,” Kaito says, “but you do for most other people. That always confused me.”

Conan lets out a breath slowly, relaxing the slightest bit. “Well why would I pretend? It’s not like you’re going to tell anyone.”

“Fair enough. No one would believe me anyway.” Conan’s reaction doesn’t make sense. Not unless he’s afraid of something, but afraid of what?? That someone will figure out he’s smart enough to skip a few grades?

Conan relaxes a hair more and then takes a chance to actually look at Kaito’s face. It’s not like the monocle is hiding much. He frowns and Kaito knows he’s wondering why Kaito looks familiar, so Kaito misdirects. Thank goodness for contouring makeup.

“Satisfied I’m not a threat yet, Tantei-kun?”

“You’re a menace,” Conan says, and his fingers tighten on his watch again, but Kaito’s ready. Conan relaxed enough that he’s easy to jar and the dart hits the cement by Kaito’s cheek as he twist, flipping them before leaping back.

He retrieves his hat on the way. “Hmm, I believe you’re out of shots,” Kaito says. “And I know better than to keep baiting an angry detective.” Kaito reaches into a pocket. He was going to mail this back to Nakamori but he might as well let Conan get a little bit of credit for once. “Here.” He tosses the night’s heist Conan’s way. “It wasn’t what I was looking for.”

“You think that’s enough to—”

“Good night, Tantei-kun.” Kaito takes the chance and leaps over the edge of the roof in the one spot he knows there are some bushes down below. A last second grapple hook slows the descent, but he’s still jarred when he lands. Nothing that’ll permanently injure though. No broken metal bones at this height. Conan stands, furious, still on the roof, and Kaito gives him a cheery wave before detonating a smoke bomb, quick-changing, and running.

Tonight raised some questions, and Kaito sees a bit of research ahead of him before he finds answers.

o*O*o

It isn’t nearly as hard as it should be to piece things together now that he’s looking for them. Kaito, until this point, has seen Edogawa Conan as a very bright, kind of scary child deserving of respect no matter his age. A bit of digging shows that ‘Edogawa Conan’ didn’t exist not too long ago, not even a full year ago yet. The birth certificate on file, while a decent forgery, is fake. There’s no passport in the system despite all verbal stories he’s heard about Conan having lived in the US, no school records prior to his current ones in Japan, no record of an Edogawa Fumiya either, though that’s the name on his records for his mother. ‘Conan’ isn’t a real person, and if it was as simple as Conan being in witness protection—a perfect legitimate thing to consider since Conan is paranoid, cagey in his habits, and draws criminals like a corpse does flies—then the cover up would be better done and there would have been a proper host family, not just a child left with a supposedly obscure relative before he got foisted off on an acquaintance.

Then there’s the other things. There’s the supposed connection to Kudo Shinichi—a relative—which pans out with Conan’s appearance, but not with records. Kudo Yuusaku and Yukiko don’t have siblings. Their parents had a few siblings, but only one of those siblings had children, and the existing grandchildren there are all the wrong age to produce ‘Conan’.

But Conan clearly knows Kudo Shinichi. He knows his methods, he knows his friends and family, he knows his face well enough to know when Kaito wore it that he was fake. Conan likes the same sports and has the same mystery-solving hobbies. He even—and Kaito had to do a bit of breaking and entering for this—wears some of Kudo Shinichi’s old clothes. Conan reacts like he’s a decade older and occasionally seems to forget his size. Kudo Shinichi stopped appearing in public around the same time Conan appeared. In fact, there’s less than a week between Kudo’s last attendance at school and Conan’s first.

When Kaito lays out the facts—and boy does he hate that he feels like a detective for this—he can only come to the conclusion that Edogawa Conan is in fact Kudo Shinichi.

It should be impossible, but what is impossible to a man who is a robot, who has fought a witch, who steals gems in moonlight to search for a stone of immortality? There’s much in the world that science and magic can explain, and probably twice as much as they can’t.

Kaito isn’t going to blackmail Kudo-Conan with it. He’s not evil, thanks. And Conan hasn’t said a word to anyone outside of Agasa’s home what Kaito is. From one person with a secret to another, Kaito can respect that. But he is left wondering what happened. Why Conan went from being a low-key Tokyo celebrity to pretending he couldn’t solve the cases he walked the police through. Or why he’d looked so terrified when Kaito called ‘Conan’ a mask like being found out was a matter of life or death.

Perhaps, Kaito thinks, Conan is another victim of science. Not a mad doctor trying to create a better, mechanical human, but a scientist looking to turn back the hand of time. Kaito won’t know until he asks him, but he’s not going to ask.

Still, next time Kaito sees Conan, he nabs a hair to pass of to Hakuba. It’ll be interesting to see if the results come back as a child or a teen.

o*O*o

“You’re not going to tell me who this belongs to are you?”

“Nope.”

“…it’s not your hair is it?”

“No! Though I always wondered how you got any genetic data from my hair.”

“It’s only part synthetic.”

“…”

“Wait, did you not know that?”

“I’ve only had time to read half the things you shove at me. Figuring out how my hair works hasn’t exactly been high on my list of things to know about my body.”

“Fair enough.”

“…so, those results.”

“Very close to yours, though there are of course differences.”

“Huh. Cool, kind of figured, but wanted to be sure.”

“…Next time you ask a favor, there had better be an explanation to go with it.”

“I fully intend not to ever ask you to do sketchy genetic testing again, but noted.”

o*O*o

It used to be that Kaito would hole up with his doves when he was upset. Well, that or pester Aoko until he was too busy dodging her rage to think. That’s changed some since becoming Kid—Aoko’s still a great distraction and he loves his birds, but he’s discovered that he likes high places too. He always did, but it’s more than just enjoyment now. So sometimes he just climbs skyscrapers for the thrill of the open air. Or, as the number of places he can be himself has grown, he visits Hakuba and climbs out his bedroom window to go sit among the chimneys. Or finds himself on Agasa’s roof yet again.

It’s a good roof for staring at the sky.

Not always the best for privacy though. Especially now that Ai lives with the Professor. It’s the place Kaito chooses when he doesn’t mind being distracted and doesn’t necessarily want a friend.

He listens to the sound of children somewhere below, the door opening and closing. The Shounen Tantei, then. Kaito hasn’t met them officially yet. He’s seen them around the few times he’s looked in on Conan though. It’s less than fifteen minutes later that the door opens to the roof and Conan walks out.

“Why are you here so much?” Conan says like finding Kaito cloud-watching is a personal offense. “Don’t tell me something broke again.”

“I can just want to get out of my house, you know,” Kaito says. “Not feeling up to playing with your friends?”

Conan just groans and flops down next to Kaito.

“That bad, huh.”

“You try reciting times tables and reading simple sentences for hours when you can do calculus and are better read than most adults. And then ending up in the middle of a little kid squabble. Again.”

Kaito hums. “Mm, yeah. School sucks. The key to getting through it is making your own fun.”

“And how do you do that?” Conan grumbles.

“Eh. Fill a classroom with confetti. Glitter bomb trap the doorknob. Leave chaos in your wake.” Kaito shrugs. “The usual.”

Conan squints at him. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“I’m a magician,” Kaito says. “I don’t joke about my pranks.”

“Your poor classmates.”

“They’re great at tuning out distractions. They really should be thanking me.”

Conan snorts. He stares up at the sky looking horribly old and tired in a too-small body.

Kaito bites his lip. If he just… brings up the whole Kudo Shinichi thing, how badly will Conan react? Well, considering the dart aimed between Kid’s eyes the other night… Hmm. “Do you believe in magic?”

“No,” Conan answers instantly. “It doesn’t exist. Everything has an explainable reason; things that people consider ‘magic’ are just things people didn’t know how to explain yet.”

“Hmm, I’ve seen some pretty inexplicable things.”

“I’d think you’d be in the camp for science, considering…”

“That I’m a robot?” Conan looks mildly uncomfortable. Kaito huffs a laugh. “Yeah, you’d think. At the same time I’ve met a witch that can ensnare men’s minds and fly on a broom, and supposedly chats with Lucifer when she needs information, so… Eh. Maybe there is a scientific explanation, or maybe there isn’t.”

“Are you sure she isn’t just a hypnotist and a Wiccan?” Conan asks skeptically.

“I mean I never asked her religious affiliation, but it’s not hypnotism so far as I can tell.” Hypnotism would be a useful skill to have though. Hmm, maybe Kaito should look into it. How likely is it that he could pull off a mass hypnotism at a heist…? …Probably low, but still, set the thought aside. “I suppose science can do a lot of impossible things though. Making a ‘human’ robot, perfectly preserving a body without deteriorating, turning back the hands of time…”

Conan tries very hard not to react, to his credit, but Kaito’s too good at reading people to miss the slight stutter in breath or stiffening around his eyes and shoulders. “Anti-aging serums are a myth of the beauty industry.”

“I never said anything about a serum.”

Conan moves and Kaito has a child leaning over him, searching his face. Kaito keeps relaxed and unthreatening as Conan focuses in on his eyes and facial structure. His eyebrows scrunch together slowly. “Give me a good reason not to dart you,” he says a beat later. Kaito expected anger, but Conan just sounds tired.

“Well for one I’m not going to tell anyone your secret, Kudo.” Conan flinches. “Conan,” Kaito corrects. “I’ll stick to Conan. And two, if I get arrested it’s not like it’ll be long before I end up in a lab being experimented on.” Kaito shivers, the sense-memory of restraints rising in the back of his mind.

“Give me another,” Conan demands hoarsely.

“It’s nice to have someone you don’t have to hide around. More than one person.” Because Agasa knows, Kaito is sure, and if Kaito’s suspicions are correct, Ai, the scary scientist child, isn’t a child any more than Conan is. How many people does Conan have? Because it took having Hakuba as support for Kaito to realize how much he needed more than just his mom or Agasa and Jii.

Conan closes his eyes. “What the hell, Kid? Is that your real face or are you stalking me?”

“It’s my face,” Kaito says quietly. “Or the only one I can claim as mine at least.”

“…The first Kid was Kuroba Toichi, wasn’t he?” Conan says, shoulders slumping. “That explains… so much.”

“Does it?”

“He had a weird friendship-rivalry with my dad,” Conan says, running a hand down his face. “And he taught my mom disguise techniques. And he taught Chris Vineyard—”

“You mean Sharon?”

“They’re the same person,” Conan says.

“Huh.” Either she is even better at makeup than he’d give his dad’s skills credit for, or there’s something there worth looking into.

“That’s not important,” Conan says, though Kaito honestly begs to differ. “Point being, the timing and my parents all fit. I could probably dig up cryptic coded letters from the depths of my attic. The gap is because he died. The timing for your return’s a bit less clear.”

Kaito shrugs. “Found some things. Met an imposter. Found out an accident wasn’t so much of an accident.”

“He was murdered.”

Another shrug.

“And you’re, what… playing bait?”

Kaito gives him Kid’s trademark grin. Conan whaps him on the head. “Ow!”

“Are you stupid?”

“Well the police aren’t going to investigate. If anything they might be full of double agents considering how many times I’ve led them to people and they mysteriously didn’t end up arrested. Even though they had guns.” Kaito frowns. “You know you never did say why you’re mini and living a double life.”

“I had a brush with poison.”

Kaito lifts a brow. “Never heard of a poison that does that.”

“It was supposed to kill me and not leave a body,” Conan says, “but apparently there’s a percentage of genetic fluke.”

“And that fluke gives us chibi-Tantei.”

“More or less.”

“Huh. So. I take it you’re investigating your would-be killers. That’s why you moved in with Mouri instead of staying with Agasa. Because Agasa would have been the better choice for keeping up your flimsy backstory.”

“I have to get access to cases somehow,” Conan grumbles. He sits back down though. No more watch pointed Kaito’s way.

“Enough don’t fall into your lap?”

“Oh, ha ha,” Conan says with a scowl.

To be fair, Kaito’s seen the stats. There’s more murders involving ‘Conan’ than any other random citizen. And only a percentage of them are intentional cases Mouri took. “Well, I’m sure you’ll catch your criminals,” Kaito says.

“You think?” Conan looks his physical age for a moment, overwhelmed, tired, and scared. “It’s been months. I don’t even know if I can return to my teenage body. And even if I can turn back, I can’t go out in public until they’re gone.”

“And I’ve been Kid for over a year,” Kaito says, thinking about how many times his actual targets have slipped through his fingers. How many gems have been the wrong one. “Some things take time. Besides, I know you’ll catch them. You’re too stubborn and single minded not to. You’re a tiny persistence hunter,” Kaito teases.

Conan huffs, but he still looks sad. Kaito has a feeling that he doesn’t stop to dwell on his situation much. Fair enough. Kaito tries not to think about his either. “Well you’re crazy and unpredictable enough that maybe you’ll pull off your goal too.”

“Please, I _will_ pull it off. I have a reputation to live up to.”

The roof door creaks and Ai pokes her head out. “Edogawa, stop moping and come downstairs. The kids are looking for you.” She glances at Kaito but doesn’t do much more than lift an eyebrow curiously at how they’re sitting so close.

“I’ll be there in a minute, Haibara,” Conan says. He scrubs a hand through his hair as Ai leaves.

“Time to put the masks back on,” Kaito says with an understanding smile. Masks are his life.

“Yeah.” Conan sighs. “Hey. Why did you tell me who you are? From your perspective it’s a pretty stupid move. I could get you arrested easily.”

“Mm, why do you think, Tantei-kun?” Kaito asks with a little Kid-like smirk.

“Either you’re bored and getting a kick out of this,” Conan says drily, “or you’re really that lonely.”

“And maybe I just wanted a level playing field with all the cards on the table,” Kaito says. “Well, most of the cards. Have to hold a few close.”

“Of course.” Conan sighs again. “I’m still chasing you at heists. I don’t approve of theft.”

“You and Hakuba both,” Kaito says with an exaggerated pout. “I’m not keeping any of them. What’s a bit of making a public nuisance and breaking and entering between friends?”

Conan laughs. He looks surprised about it too, so Kaito counts it as a win even as Conan gives him a wave and walks away.

“Are we friends now?” Kaito muses, alone again. “Sideways allies? Secret-keepers?” Well, he came out of that uninjured, still conscious, and not in handcuffs. That’s definitely a win.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, have more angst. This time Aoko centered

In the end, it’s an accident. A split second of distraction and Aoko having just enough speed to make up for it. It’s not even a solid blow from her broom as she’s chasing Kaito around her house in one of their usual play-fights, but it’s at just the right angle and Kaito turns just the right way that it hits his bad shoulder and Kaito _drops_.

The spot has been fine since Hakuba fixed it. No pain, full range of motion, no trouble in heists at all. Except it must not have healed right because that one glancing blow is enough to send a feeling like being stabbed with a dozen shards of glass across his back and down his arm.

“Kaito?!” Aoko’s broom falls with a clatter.

Kaito blinks hard and realizes he’s crouched in the middle of her living room, hugging himself with a grimace of pain. He’d stop, but the feeling isn’t going away, like it’s stuck in a nasty feedback loop or something. Or maybe the broken bits are crossing over, bits of nerve grating on nerve in a horrible combination.

“Are you okay? Did I hit you that hard?” Aoko hovers over him, hands fluttering like one of his dove’s wings as she can’t decide if touching will make things worse or not. “I thought you would dodge that.” Because Kaito always dodges.

But he’d realized mid step that it’s been ages since they did this outside of school. Ages since he hung out with Aoko just because and teased her instead of helping with chores and ending up chased with whatever cleaning tool she had on hand. And that realization and surprise cost him.

Kaito forces his left hand to release its death grip on his opposite shoulder and uncurls from his crouch. “I’m fine,” he says through gritted teeth.

“You’re not,” Aoko says, frowning. “Let me get some ice—”

Kaito closes his eyes as she leaves and tries to school his face into something normal. It’s so hard with his shoulder sending out agony. At least it’s _just_ his shoulder this time though. He drags out his phone, typing a message to Hakuba.

His phone starts ringing half a second later. “Kuroba,” Hakuba says, “I’m not in Tokyo. Do you still have the disruptor I gave you?”

Kaito remembers a glass vial and a few syringes, given to him after the whole arm debacle on the off chance he ever needed to deal with major nerve trauma again. It’s stashed in the bathroom medicine cabinet with the rest of the various strength pain medications Kaito has stashed away. “I do.”

“Use it. I’ll be back in the next twelve hours but I can’t get there any sooner.”

He sounds genuinely regretful and despite the pain, it’s not like this is Hakuba’s fault. Kaito’s body just isn’t normal and doesn’t work in predictable ways. Accidents, as Kaito knows only too well, happen. And keep happening. Kaito closes his eyes, hearing Aoko clatter in the kitchen probably shoving ice in a towel or something. “One problem.”

“What?”

“Aoko.”

“I’m sure you can make something up,” Hakuba says. “Or…”

“Just spit it out.”

“Or you could tell her,” he suggests softly.

“I _can’t_ ,” Kaito says.

“Then lie,” Hakuba says, “and I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

“Thanks.” Kaito hangs up before Hakuba can say anything else and heads toward the front door.

Unfortunately, Aoko intercepts. “You should sit down!” she says shoving plastic bag full of ice and wrapped in a singed dish towel at him.

“Just. I’m getting a pain killer.”

“I can get it.”

“No, I just need to—” Kaito grits his teeth and steps around her. Aoko follows him protesting all the way to his bathroom. He tries to block her from coming in his house and then the bathroom door as he flicks open the medicine cabinet, but Aoko makes an aggravated noise and hovers at his shoulder. He sheds his shirt.

“Let me help! I’m the one that hit you!”

“I can take care of this!” Kaito argues. It’s hard to prepare a hypodermic needle when one hand is having spasms.

“Kaito, is that a syringe?! Are you doing drugs?!”

“No!” Kaito fumbles the bottle and almost loses it and the needle both all over the floor. “Fuck.” He whirls on Aoko. “Hold the bottle.”

“What is it?” Aoko asks. There’s just a plain white label with Hakuba’s writing in English block letters.

Kaito closes her hand around the bottle. “It’s a specially ordered numbing agent,” Kaito says. “I’ve had a few injuries that keep cropping up.”

“Your arm…” Aoko is quiet as Kaito finally gets the liquid into the syringe. “Can you inject yourself?”

“I’m fine,” Kaito grumbles. He’s got the flexibility and dexterity to reach with his left hand and he injects it. The horrible feeling dies instantly along with all the feeling in the surrounding areas. He can’t feel his hand either, but as it flexes just fine when he tries, it’s working about how it did the last time. “Thanks.”

“That fast?”

“I said it was specially made.” Kaito sets the syringe aside to dispose of later and puts the bottle back in the cabinet.

“You shouldn’t be using your arm,” Aoko says, subdued.

“It’s fine.”

“You almost blacked out from the pain.”

“Well it’s not hurting right this second anymore. It’s not that kind of injury anyway.”

“And what kind of injury is it, Kaito?” Aoko says, her anger sparking up again now that Kaito’s not in immediate distress. “What kind of injury needs a special made pain killer?”

“Nerve damage kind of injury,” Kaito says.

“And how the hell did that kind of damage happen? Because that’s not the sort of thing you get from tumbling, Kaito! Or lab experiments!”

“Oh because you’re an expert on nerve damage,” Kaito says. He should have tried soothing instead of sass though because Aoko makes a sound like a tea kettle crossed with an angry cat.

“Why can’t you just talk to me!” She shoves him in the chest hard enough to make him take a step back. “This isn’t new! You’ve been getting hurt for months. You flake out on doing things and you never talk about what’s going on in your life at all anymore! I hear more about your life from your mom than you and she’s half a world away! You talk and talk and it’s nothing!” To Kaito’s horror, there’s tears in her eyes. “When did you start pulling away?”

“Aoko…”

“No!” She jabs him in the chest again, this time with a finger, teeth bared and eyes leaking tears down her cheeks. “You did! You keep pulling pranks and meeting up but half the time you’re barely paying attention! You don’t come over unless I ask. You talk to Hakuba-kun about serious things but you don’t talk to _me_. You’re my best friend and I feel like I barely know you anymore.” Aoko hides her face in her hands and Kaito stands, frozen as she breaks down in front of him. “I thought you cared for me back. But you’ve been pulling away for months…”

“Aoko…” Kaito starts again. He should hug her. Spin some pretty lie like he always does. And then what? Go back to keeping her at a distance because he can’t be the Kaito she wants him to be? Maybe he could have before he figured out what he was, but since then, he isn’t sure how he’s felt about a lot of things. And even if he’s still close to being the Kaito she knew, everything that’s happened has changed part of him, would have changed the real Kaito. Kaito touches her arm and she pulls in on herself further. It’s like a slap in the face.

“Just tell me,” Aoko pleads. “What’s going on?”

It feels like he’s being crushed seeing her cry. Her crying because he’s hurt her. Aoko might have hit him, but Kaito’s been hurting her for a while. Dozens of little moments when he smoothed over her concerns, prodded her anger and made her forget for a little while about looking too close at his life prickle at his conscience.

“I…” The words stick in his throat _. Commit, Kaito_ , he thinks. Either lie or don’t. Keep hurting her with distance, or hurt her with trust. She’s Kaito’s oldest friend. And he doesn’t want to lose that. But.

She loves Kaito. Kaito knows it, has used that to his advantage. It’s selfish, but it’s something he likes about her. It’s something he jealously doesn’t want to change. Not even for another version of himself that actually lived that childhood with her.

And the worst thing of all is that Kaito doesn’t know whether the other Kaito would be standing here in his shoes or if he’d have made choices that didn’t hurt Aoko as much.

Kaito loves her back. As much as he thinks he can love anyone, and he doesn’t _know_ if it’s the same as he used to feel when he was human anymore.

“You aren’t going to tell me, are you?” Aoko says. She looks at him and Kaito feels like he’s been stabbed, the heartbreak on her face reflecting right back on him.

_Lie!_ The part of him that cares about self-preservation is screaming.

She might actually try to kill him this time if he keeps saying nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Kaito says finally.

“You’re not.” Aoko wipes at her tears. They don’t stop. “You never are. Not for real.”

“I know.” He’s so bad at honesty, to Aoko or anyone else, even himself. “I want to be sorry.” That is true at least. He has regrets, but usually they aren’t the sort that people think he should apologize for—or things he actually should apologize for. That at least hasn’t changed since he became this.

“Do you Kaito? Really?”

“I don’t like making you cry.”

“Then do something about it!” Aoko roars in his face.

“I’m going to make you cry either way,” he admits. “Either from talking or lying or saying nothing.”

“I just want the truth!”

Kaito searches her face for any hesitation, but he only finds sincerity swirling with hurt and anger and no small amount of desperation.

It’s awfully selfish to want to keep this from her forever. It’s not possible to keep it from her forever. Not if they stay together years from now. Romantically or not. She’ll grow and change and have all the human things that come with age happen. And Kaito won’t. Oh, maybe some things will change, and it’s not like it will be noticeable for a long while, not unless he malfunctions in a major way, which is always a possibility. He’s not sure how long he was built to last. But the truth will come out eventually and the longer it goes on it’ll hurt her more. More than Kid ever would. That’s a different sort of betrayal than a robot with your best friend’s face and memories and emotions.

“I don’t know how to make you believe me,” he says. It’s not like everyone else who learned by seeing his insides. Although… “Wait a second and I’ll… Just wait here.”

Aoko sniffles and glares, but she stays.

Kaito hopes he isn’t going to lose one of the most important people in his life.

He finds the x-ray he took months ago and comes back. Aoko hasn’t moved, but she has dried her tears. Now she’s edging toward angry again.

“I needed proof,” he says. “Look… That wasn’t a painkiller I injected.”

“What? It wasn’t drugs was it?”

“Just. Let me talk and you can react after I’m done.” Why is this so hard? Why couldn’t it be like everyone else? “It’s kind of a painkiller, but it’d probably be poison to anyone else. Last year I was coming home from school and some creepy guy knocked me out. When I woke up I was in a lab out of a cliché hero special, strapped to a table, and a robot was copying my memories. It looked exactly like me, but it… I think there was something wrong with it. It didn’t understand. Morals. People.” Kaito hugs his bad arm to him, remember the blood spatter and the mad grin as the robot aimed a gun at his head. “It wanted to take my place. And it almost did. And I got away and killed it and.”

He can’t look at her. Can’t see her disbelief. He wouldn’t believe if he heard this coming from his lips. Kaito so often lies.

“I thought that was it. It was over. I could just… go on like it never happened, right? Not like anyone would believe a body double took my place, right?” Kaito laughs hollowly. “Then I hurt my ribs and had an x-ray.” He hands it to Aoko.

Her brows lower as she stares at the image. “What…?”

“That’s my chest. The wires here,” he traces a line, “are more or less my muscles and ligaments. And these are my ‘nerves’. And that’s my ‘veins’. My bones are a light, durable metal alloy. I have no idea how my skin and blood work or how I digest food for energy or any of that. Just. When I injected that earlier, it keeps this,” he taps the silvery grey of his ‘nerves,’ “from reaching the part of me that processes the feeling. I hurt my shoulder recently. It should have healed, but the nerves must not repair the way other things do.”

“I don’t…” Aoko shakes her head. “What?”

“It turns out that the crazy old guy with the lab didn’t make one robot, he made two. And one of us was more human in all ways than the other.” He licks his lips as she still doesn’t react. “So if you noticed I was different, well, about six months ago I figured out that I wasn’t what I thought I was. That kind of messes you up.”

“But. You’re you,” Aoko says helplessly. “You’re… I… _What?”_

“There was a machine. It transfers memories and the doctor used it on Kaito on me. On both of us I guess, technically, but I got everything that makes Kaito Kaito. I remember giving you a rose under the clock tower. I remember playing make believe with you and your mom before she died. I remember you going with me to some of Oyaji’s shows before he died. I remember being your guinea pig when you were learning to cook.” He almost smiles at the memory of those trials and errors—mostly errors—that he’d complained about and eaten anyway. That _Kaito_ ate. “But I also have seem my hand cut open. I’ve had a whole leg bone replaced. I’ve seen my scans and read the science that went into this.”

“But if you’re not… If you’re a robot…” The points are connecting and Kaito has the terrible privilege of watching Aoko’s face crumple in dismay. “What happened to Kaito?”

“When I realized… I went back. He was in the basement.” Kaito thinks it’s probably the horror that he can’t hide, the haunted feeling that never went away, that finally convinces her. “Hakuba knows. He’s fixed my arm when I messed it up. He found out by accident.”

“Your mother…?”

“Knows.” He looks away. “If you look at Oyaji’s shrine, there’s a second memorial there.”

“He’s dead.”

There’s not any way to soften this. It hurts. It hurts them both and Kaito can’t fix this any more than he could fix hurting his mother or Jii or even Hakuba for all that Hakuba never met the human Kaito.

“A _year_.” Aoko’s crying again. “I… I need to go.”

“Aoko—”

“I need to go,” she says arms wrapped around her chest like she’s holding herself together.

Kaito reaches for her but lets it fall when she flinches back. “Okay.”

She walks past him, fast, and he lets her go.

He lets her go.

Kaito sinks to the bathroom floor and buries his face in his knees.

o*O*o

Someone is touching him, but the feeling’s distant, the same way the pain in his shoulder has become distant. It’s just one more useless stimulus. The touch on his arm turns into two hands on his face and a blurry golden-brown blob that resolves into Hakuba as Kaito blinks.

“Have you been here the whole time?” Hakuba asks, and maybe he’s asked it before, Kaito hasn’t been paying any attention to the world around him. Kaito just blinks, feeling too heavy to move. “What happened?”

Kaito blinks again and feels like he’s crumpling inside again. “I told Aoko about Kaito.”

“Oh, Kaito…”

Kaito has no idea what to do with Hakuba pulling him into a hug. Hakuba’s not the hug type. It shows. He’s never had quite so stiff a hug before, but Hakuba’s trying. Kaito mechanically lifts his arms to hug back. “I’m not the real Kaito, the one she grew up with. She’s in love with him and I—he—we know it. Knew it. He was in love with her too.”

“And you’re not?” Hakuba asks, pulling back. He looks Kaito’s face over like he’ll get clues. He should know better; when Kaito has a blank face, nothing shows.

“I love her. But I don’t know if it’s the same love.” He thought it was. But is it the memory of that feeling or is he actually feeling it? Love is love. He loves his mother, Jii, Aoko, even Hakuba, but that’s one love and then there’s _romantic and sexual_ love and he’s. Does he? “I’m not her Kaito but I really really want to be.”

Hakuba pulls him back into a hug as Kaito’s tears start, silent. “It’s going to be okay. It’s Nakamori-chan.”

Yes, it’s Aoko. And Aoko has a temper and holds grudges. And she loves Kaito and that means she’s not going to react logically. And like everyone else, she didn’t know Kaito was replaced. Even if she ends up not hating him, she might end up hating herself.

“I should have lied.”

Hakuba gives him a gentle shake. “No, it’s something she needed to know. You know it’s not healthy to lie to her as much as you do.”

“I just wanted to keep her. Have something that wasn’t complicated.”

“Uncomplicated is the last thing I would have called what you have with Nakamori-chan.”

“Mm. But it was my normal.”

Hakuba sighs but doesn’t say anything to that. What is there to say? “I should look at your shoulder.”

“I think something fractured again, or maybe it didn’t fuse back right in the first place. It’s that overlap feeling like last time only constant.”

“When did you numb it last?”

“I… shortly after talking to you?”

“Kuroba Kaito,” Hakuba says with exasperation. “You have the bottle still?”

“Medicine cabinet.”

“Thank you.”

It takes all of a few seconds for the pain to disappear again. Hakuba doesn’t seem to want to go more than an arm’s reach away because he keeps his leg in contact with Kaito’s back the whole process.

“Do we have to go anywhere for you to do this?” Kaito asks, knowing they do.

“Agasa-san’s laboratory is the best choice. Unless you have equipment that can do a scan here?”

“Not as good. I have an old x-ray machine my dad left me, but it’s…” Kaito sighs. You know what? Fuck it. “Come on.”

“Kuroba?”

“What, now I’m Kuroba, what happened to Kaito?”

Hakuba blinks, then goes red as he must not have realized he even used Kaito’s first name a few minutes ago. “Er. Apologies?”

“It’s fine. You can use my first name if you want to.” If Aoko is really done with him, that leaves Hakuba as his best friend. How.

Toichi’s painting stands tall as always. What would he think of this mess? Well, he’d probably have a regret or two.

“Your father?” Hakuba asks looking up at it.

“Mm.” Kaito presses on the painting. The hidden door clicks open. Hakuba makes a choked sound beside him. “I found this completely by accident. I was kind of upset about it. How would you feel finding out your parent is a thief?” Both parents really. “Got over it pretty fast though.”

Hakuba barks a laugh, staring. “You don’t say?”

“C’mon.”

He’s showing a detective his secret hideout but really, he can’t care right now. He’s too tired to worry about consequences, and really he has more or less stopped thinking that Hakuba will do anything outside of a heist. Maybe not even in one. They’re actually friends these days.

To Hakuba’s credit, he snaps out of trying to take in every detail possible when Kaito sets up the machine.

“This is old,” he says.

“Yeah, well, Oyaji died nine years ago and this is probably older than that. We’re lucky it’s still in working order all things considered. Then again I think Kaa-san dusts down here whenever she’s home.”

Hakuba shakes his head wordlessly and positions Kaito for the scan. “You probably shouldn’t be using your arm like it’s not injured.”

“I don’t think it is really injured. Not like last time.” Kaito droops as soon as it’s done and goes through the steps of preparing the film on automatic. Hakuba’s worried stare just tickles against his awareness irritatingly. “Stop hovering.”

“I’m concerned.”

“I noticed. I’ll be okay. I’m just not yet. If you’d rather I can pretend.”

“No,” Hakuba says. “No, don’t force yourself to act fine when you certainly are not.”

Kaito shrugs. “It’s status quo, Hakuba.”

“…You can use my first name if you want as well, Kaito.”

Kaito hums, not sure if he will.

Hakuba sighs and goes back to looking around. “…How did the car get down here?”

“Not a clue. Never found an exit for it.”

“…Your father was just as dramatic as you, wasn’t he?”

“Well he was the first Kid. That tells you everything.”

“Let me see the film.”

It was about what Kaito expected. Re-broken spots but not as large and more like a fracturing so a lot of little bits were overlapping and causing pain-feedback hell. And absolutely a pain to fix.

“I hate to say it, but this might not be completely repairable with my current understanding of how it works,” Hakuba says with a grimace. “I can probably do another patch job and smooth it out again, but it seems to be fragile where it’s repaired.”

“So I’ll treat it like a chronic issue that can crop up. I can adjust.”

“I know you can. I’m frustrated that I can’t do more at the moment though.”

“You do plenty.” Kaito slumps into a chair at the worktable. He has notes and bits of Kid’s gear in various stages of creation but Hakuba isn’t even focusing on them. Go figure.

“I brought materials to work on you. Would you prefer I do that here or somewhere else?”

“I’m not moving until—what time is it?”

“Seven in the morning.”

“Ah. Well. I’m not moving until at least lunch.” Kaito folds his arms on the table and rests his head on them.

Hakuba touches his left shoulder to keep from startling him and says, “I’ll get to work then.”

“Thanks,” Kaito mumbles into the table.

o*O*o

It doesn’t take Hakuba long to finish, and Kaito meant it when he said he wasn’t moving. Hakuba leaves and comes back with cups of tea, the good, rich green tea that his mother drinks when she needs the comfort of a refined flavor. It’s warm and smells like weekends when she’s home and they actually sit down and have a meal or two together. He sips it, feeling too old for seventeen. One? Seventeen, there’s seventeen years of memories.

And Hakuba stays because he’s being kind, even if he does pull out case files and start working on them. He still hasn’t dug into Kid’s things like Kaito would have expected him to. The detective must be squashing his curiosity down with a vengeance.

“It’s probably a good thing I didn’t tell Aoko about Kid too,” Kaito muses as he swirls the dregs of his tea. “Then I would have gone from not-Kaito to enemy and she’d really hate me forever.”

“I believe you’re underestimating her ability to forgive you. Considering how often she’s done so in the past, she will come around,” Hakuba says.

“She forgave me for stupid stuff, not life or death stuff. There’s a difference. This could be the thing that breaks a rotting bridge.”

“So put in the effort to repair it once you’ve given her time to process. She’s likely in shock. I had to process things as well and I barely knew you. You didn’t witness this process though because you were unconscious.”

“Lucky me.” Kaito downs the last lukewarm swallow of tea. “How much is it killing you not to snoop right now?”

“I am attempting to be a good friend,” Hakuba demurs.

“Translation: a ton. I don’t care if you look around, just don’t break anything or use it against me.” Kaito’s body is slowly starting to feel again and his shoulder is starting to register pain of the ‘I’ve been cut open and stitched back together’ variety instead of ‘my nerves are on fire’. Kaito wants to sleep. Or maybe run away, but that’s never been tenable. He wants… “Come meet my doves,” Kaito say abruptly.

Hakuba sets aside his files and follows because he’s actually not too bad at this friend thing.

They end up smothered in birds and it’s almost peaceful. Warm, soft bodies and gentle cooing and over a dozen birds that love Kaito just how he is, nothing more complicated at all.

o*O*o

The front door clicks open as Hakuba is trying to convince Kaito to eat more than an apple for dinner. Kaito’s tuning out his insistent points that Kaito needs a steady caloric intake because he simply doesn’t have the same energy storage that humans have in fat deposits—while Kaito points that he _does_ have a way to store energy or he’d have keeled over dozens of times from skipped meals to which Hakuba is very unhappy about—but he catches sight of Aoko the second she reaches the doorway. The apple slips through his fingers.

“You still have to eat _someth…_ ing...” Hakuba trails off as he sees her too. “Ah. Should I go?”

“I don’t know yet,” Kaito says.

Aoko’s eyes are red and puffy and she looks like she hasn’t slept any more than Kaito has. Her arms are wrapped around her chest like it’s all that’s keeping her together. “Kaito…”

Hakuba looks between them and sighs. “Kaito, I’m getting takeaway and will be back. You _will_ eat what I get you.”

“Fine.” Kaito tears his eyes away from Aoko long enough to give Hakuba a wan smile. “Thanks, Hakuba.”

Hakuba smiles back and nods to Aoko before slipping past her.

“You’re ‘Kaito’ to him too, now?” Aoko asks in a soft voice once they’re alone.

Kaito picks up the apple from the floor. “Since today at least.” There’s going to be a huge bruise on the fruit. He doesn’t feel like eating it anymore. “You’re leading with that?”

Aoko’s fingers grip white-knuckled around her elbows. “How is your shoulder?”

“Healing.” Kaito tugs his shirt to the side to show the bandage. “Hakuba had to cut me open, but it should be fine in a week.”

“A week.”

“Healing works different. Some things are faster. And some things don’t heal.”

Aoko bites her lip. “You’re the only Kaito I’ve known in the last year.”

“Yeah.”

“You made a whole building light up and put on fireworks for my birthday. You went on a date with me to an amusement park and skied with me wearing a wedding dress. You had dinner with me at least once a week that whole time and listened to me vent even if sometimes you were the problem.” There’s a sheen of tears but they’re not falling. “You pranked the class and you’re the one that met Hakuba-kun and Akako-chan and you pestered people about Valentine’s chocolate without even realizing it was Valentine’s.” She sniffs. “I can’t think of anything you’ve done that Kaito wouldn’t have. Just how you stopped being as close to me. And that’s because you had a big secret, right? And you thought you couldn’t trust me. Of course we stopped being close…”

“Aoko…”

“No, shush. Kaito’s dead. But you are him too, aren’t you? You said you have all his memories.”

“I do. At least as far as I can tell.” Kaito feels cautious hope flicker to life.

“And you didn’t know what you were.”

“I didn’t.”

“And you still feel the same.”

“…I do. I know I’m not but all the differences that exist aren’t things I notice day to day. I feel like Kaito.”

Aoko gives him a wobbly smile. “You _are_ Kaito.”

“I’m _a_ Kaito,” Kaito says. “That’s as much as I can let myself be. I don’t… I didn’t want to replace him.”

“I’m still upset.”

“ _I’m_ still upset,” Kaito says. “It’s been more than half a year knowing. I don’t expect you to get over it overnight.”

“Good, because I won’t.” Aoko takes a step closer. “Can I hug you?”

Kaito holds out a hand and Aoko all but falls into him.

“It’s not fair,” she says into his chest.

“I know.”

“I don’t know how to feel because you’re here.”

“I know.” Kaito holds her tighter and Aoko shakes in his arms. There’s not many tears though; she’s too cried out to have many left to spare.

“Can we fix this? Us?”

“I want to,” Kaito says, Kid looming in the back of his mind. He’s not sure it will work.

“You don’t trust me. And I don’t know how much I trust you either right now,” Aoko admits. “You lie to me a lot, Kaito.”

“I do.”

“Why?”

Such a simple but complex question. What it boils down to though… “I’m scared. My secrets can hurt people and knowing them could hurt you, or a lot of other people I care about.”

“But Hakuba-kun knows,” Aoko says and Kaito realizes she’s jealous. Of _Hakuba_. It’s so ridiculous, but he kind of gets why. Hakuba knows him better these days than she does. Like, intimately on a physical level that would be creepy if it wasn’t only because Hakuba’s designated himself Kaito’s bio-mechanic.

“He knows because I messed up and he literally had to help piece me together. I didn’t choose to tell him anything.”

“But you trust him.” She says it like a fact and not a question and it kind of is a fact. He literally has his life in Hakuba’s hands.

“I didn’t right up until he proved he could be trusted,” Kaito says after a moment.

“…You still have more secrets don’t you,” she says resignedly. She sighs. “…I guess you can keep them a little longer because I don’t think I can take hearing more right now anyway. But you’re going to tell me eventually, Kaito. I don’t want to keep being out of the loop when everyone else in your life isn’t.”

“All three or four people,” Kaito mutters.

“Shush. No complaining, more hugging.”

He huffs a laugh. Aoko might still hate him for being Kid but at least he isn’t being completely cut out of her life. “I was worried you’d treat me different,” he says after a few minutes of standing there. “I liked just being Kaito with you.”

“…Then I’ll try to keep you just ‘Kaito’ in my head,” Aoko says. “You are Kaito so it shouldn’t be too hard. Be yourself and I’ll respond like always.”

“I’ll do that.” He shifts. It’s both nice and a little uncomfortable to hug her this long. He’s not used to intimacy. Aoko takes the hint and unwinds her arms, though she doesn't move far. “I’m not great at being open, so don’t expect this to be an all the time thing.”

“I don’t. I know you, remember?” Aoko says. “Can you at least tell me a bit about how things have changed since you figured out the robot thing?”

“I can do that.”

By the time Hakuba returns with convenience store curry bowls and enough candy and chocolate to either jumpstart Kaito’s system again or put him into a sugar coma, Kaito and Aoko have moved to the living room and reached something of an understanding.

It’s the first heart to heart they’ve had in ages and it makes him think of when they were kids. Back when sleepovers weren’t weird to have and they’d make blanket forts and confess whatever came to mind. It’s been so many years since they did that. He kind of wants to do that now, but they’re not there yet, Kid-shaped-secret aside.

“Oh thank goodness,” Hakuba says seeing them sitting on the couch talking.

“You thought you’d find us trying to rip each other apart or something?” Kaito asks, as close to his usual humor as he can manage after so much emotional turmoil the last few hours.

“Well I hoped not, but I can never tell with you two,” Hakuba says. “You find it amusing to have Aoko chase you with a blunt-force weapon, so it wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility. I brought enough curry for all of us,” he adds, looking to Aoko.

“Thanks, Hakuba-kun. I haven’t really eaten much of anything today.”

“You and Kaito both.” Hakuba hands them curry bowls and goes to get spoons.

Kaito opens a packet of peach-flavored Hi-Chew.

“You’re going to ruin your appetite,” Aoko says.

“There’s always room for sugar,” Kaito says.

“He processes sugar easier,” Hakuba says, holding out spoons and some soft drinks he found in Kaito’s fridge. “Granted he needs more complex and nutritionally variant foods than highly processed sugar, but sugar is best for an energy boost.”

“How do you know that, Hakuba-kun?” Aoko asks.

“I read the notes left behind by the scientist that made Kaito’s body. It’s fascinating if more than a little bit disturbing. It’s actually full of things that could potentially be useful for prosthetics or synthetic organs if compatibility issues could be worked out…” Hakuba takes the chair across from them. “At any rate, I have a rough understanding of how Kaito’s body works and what it needs. And at the moment,” he says pointedly, “it needs fuel.”

“I’m opening my curry right now!” Kaito protests.

“Eat.”

Kaito rolls his eyes. “You’re worse than my mom.”

“If she was here I am sure she’d have gotten you to eat something already.”

“Is that a dig at my mother?” Kaito asks, eyes narrowed.

“The opposite. She knows you well enough to get results faster.” Hakuba is suspiciously straight faced and Kaito isn’t ruling out that it was a backward stab at how Chikage is rarely in Japan. “Just eat your curry. You can gorge yourself on sugar after.”

“Thanks, I will.”

“They’re to share.”

“I know! I’m not going to hoard everythi—oh, is that strawberry Melty Kiss chocolates?”

Hakuba sighs.

Aoko giggles softly. “You have his taste in chocolate down,” she says.

“I went for the sweetest flavors,” Hakuba says.

“Exactly.”

“Excuse you, I like all chocolate,” Kaito says around a mouthful of curry.

“Don’t talk while you’re eating, Bakaito.”

By the time both of them leave for the night, Kaito almost feels normal again. Some days his luck is shit, but others… He might be one of the luckiest people alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some weird names for Japanese candy brands. I'm looking at you Melty Kiss chocolates.


	9. Chapter 9

“Do you go to school?” Conan asks Kaito.

Kaito, in disguise as a young woman just for the fun of it (and for practice because skills need constant upkeep), smiles. “Of course I go to school.”

“And yet you happen to show on a day that only my school is closed for water damage.” His little kid friends are arguing about something on the other end of the playground. Conan watches them like he’s just waiting for them to remember he exists and drag him into whatever their scheming is. Scheming being the accurate term because Haibara Ai is part of that group and anything that makes her smirk, Kaito has learned, isn’t nearly as fun for the person on the other end of that look.

“I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“There was a heist a week ago.”

“And you kicked a soccer ball at me. That’s hardly communication.”

“You could just show up to Agasa’s.”

Kaito hums. “And how often are you actually there?”

“Okay, fair point. But you could talk to Haibara.”

“You say that like she isn’t terrifying.” Ai had a habit of updating him about what new things she figured out about Kaito’s body—both human and robotic—which hardly endeared her to him. He’d developed a habit of trying to avoid her whenever he actually had to drop in to Agasa’s place because being told in detail how your body replicated synthetic blood from what you ate is not pleasant conversation. Nor was the fact that she’d actually been studying Kaito’s corpse even though he doesn’t want her to. Kaito really doesn’t care how it’s not decomposing or what’s keeping the brain alive; it’s something he doesn’t want to think about.

“Oh, she is terrifying. That’s all part of being her friend.”

“Is she friends with any of you?” Kaito asks because from the bits he’s gotten out of them, Ai is the person who made the poison that changed Conan. And she’s older than Shinichi and Kaito both. He doesn’t know what to make of her, and all the more reason to avoid her.

“Yes,” Conan says. “She cares, and it’s not just guilt. She cares for the kids, and she at least tolerates me.” He smirks back at Ai as she lifts an eyebrow their direction. Conan makes a quick ring around his eye with his finger and thumb and the eyebrow lowers.

“Hey. Way to rat a guy out.”

“Please, she’d realize who you were a few minutes into talking with you if she came over here. She’s scary perceptive about that kind of thing.”

“It’s probably the PTSD hypervigilance,” Kaito grumbles.

Conan kicks him in the shin and Kaito swears under his breath.

“Your bony feet are a weapon.”

“I know,” Conan says. “C’mon, let’s go rope the kids into something before they spring something on us.”

“What, you expect me to join you?” Kaito asks. “I’m just a passing young woman enjoying a conversation.”

“Well you’re going to be a young woman playing with some kids.” Conan grabs Kaito’s hand and pulls, and it’s follow or be knocked sideways on his modest high heels. Brat.

It’s a good think Kaito doesn’t mind children.

o*O*o

Conan is at Agasa’s place when Kaito next shows up, the Kirin’s Horn heist fresh in his mind. It’s clearly still on Conan’s mind too because he glares at Kaito when he enters the room.

“You!” Conan growls.

“Me!” Kaito says, trying not to feel intimidated. It’s actually pretty hard since he knows intimately just how hard Conan can kick.

“You’re a jerk.”

“Agreed,” Ai says from her place on the sofa, book in hand.

“For knocking you out?” Kaito says. “All’s fair at heists, or did I miss a memo?”

“I am going to sic the police on you so hard next time,” Conan says.

“You got off lucky this time.”

“You _chloroformed_ me.”

“Originally,” Kaito says, “it was going to be a Taser.”

Both Ai and Conan give him horrified looks.

“Oi, not like a full strength one! I don’t want to kill you.” Kaito scrubs the back of his neck and goes to sit on the couch that isn’t currently full of not-children with a grudge at the moment. “I was testing a lower power version and everything, and by testing, I mean I Tasered myself. Fun fact: robots and electricity apparently don’t mix.”

“Oh my god, what did you do?” Conan asks still horrified, but also morbidly curious.

“I, er, might have shorted something out temporarily. And temporarily disrupted some of my bio-synthetic processes.”

“Meaning you almost died,” Ai says with the level tone of a scientist making an observation. “You’re an idiot.”

“Oi, It’s not like I could have known how I’d react. Most things I handle like a human.” Kaito wrinkles his nose at her. “Hakuba already gave me a riot act on doing dangerous shit without supervision so I don’t need to hear it from you.”

“Still an idiot. Also, don’t Taser Kudo, we still don’t know how much the toxin has harmed his heart.”

Kaito blinks and Conan grimaces.

“I thought you said it was fine,” Conan says.

“I said I didn’t notice any signs of problems, but that doesn’t mean it’s fine. The change feels like a heart attack, and that’s probably significant.”

“Noted,” Kaito says. “I’d feel bad if I actually killed you.”

Conan looks unimpressed. “Wow, such strong feelings.”

Kaito rolls his eyes. “I’d be devastated if I killed anyone, that doesn’t make you special.”

“And I thought our friendship meant something,” Conan says, deadpan.

Kaito snickers.

“Are you here for a reason or did you just so happen to feel social?” Ai asks.

“A little of column A, a little of column B,” Kaito says with an airy wave of his hand. “Catch up on Beika news, visit one of my favorite detectives and his lovely scientist friend, run a scan to triple check I really didn’t short anything out with all the electricity going on the other day…”

“Get to the lab, idiot,” Ai says setting her book aside. “Agasa-hakase isn’t here today, so you’ll have to have me as a lab tech.”

“Joy.” Ai always has a way of leaving Kaito uncomfortable.

“I could leave you to struggle on your own.”

“No, no, the help is appreciated. I can’t do full body scans all on my lonesome.” Kaito stretches. “Any new murders since we last saw each other, Tantei-kun?”

“A drowning and an onsen murder actually.”

Kaito pauses. “…Was the drowning at the onsen or are these two separate murders?”

Conan looks at him with too-old eyes. “Which do you think?”

“You have terrible luck, did you know that?”

“I’m very aware.”

“He’s still on my shit list for the onsen murder,” Ai says, already prepping the lab with efficiency.

“Wow, what did he do?” Kaito drags a chair to the best position for a body scan.

“He ran into the women’s baths.”

“You’d just found a dead body!” Conan sputters. “You got your revenge already! It wasn’t like I was even paying attention to you!”

“I’m not that quick to forgive.”

Kaito snorts. “You’re lucky it wasn’t my friend Aoko. She tends to hit first, question later.”

“Speaking from experience?” Ai asks.

“Lots of it. I mean I have it coming, but still. It’s best for my self-preservation that I’ve mostly outgrown flipping her skirt.”

Both Ai and Conan give him identical disgusted grimaces. “You deserve any head trauma you get from that,” Ai says.

“Fair enough. I don’t really get why it’s such a big deal to so many people though, honestly. Bodies are bodies.”

“You’re the one that used underwear to distract me in the Black Star heist,” Conan says.

“To distract _you_ yeah, but it’s more funny to me than distracting?” Kaito shrugs. “To be honest I think that’s something that changed since I became…like this. I can remember feeling… things… but those sort of thought skew toward the romantic rather than the physical these days.”

“While that makes me want to pick apart your brain,” Ai says in that bland, terrifying way of hers, “I need you to hold still so I can take the scan.”

Kaito gives her a mocking little salute and makes like a statue. Ai positions the machine around him in multiple angles until she’s satisfied.

“If you don’t feel that, what’s with all the attempts at kissing people?” Conan grumbles. People, meaning Ran, Kaito guesses.

“Kissing is nice,” Kaito says when Ai will let him move again. “Not that I’ve done much of it. I thought you realized by now I’m a lot more show than not when I’m Kid. Or in general really.” He doesn’t pretend too much around them these days and that’s kind of nice. It’s also more than a bit unnerving whenever he stops and considers that he’s being vulnerable, but it’s probably worth it in the long run. He’s been told a lot lately that honesty and openness make for stronger friendships. “Half of all that is just to mess with you.”

“Oi. Do you want a soccer ball to the face?”

Kaito snickers. “You have to admit, you make the best panicked faces.”

“I hope Ran punches you next time.”

“I’d deserve it,” Kaito agrees cheerfully.

“Well,” Ai says, “I’m not seeing anything obvious, but I’ll go over the scans in detail and get back to you. In the meantime, look out for anything off and don’t play lightning rod.”

“There goes that fantasy of hang gliding in a thunder storm,” Kaito says.

“I know you’re joking,” Conan says, “but sometimes it’s honestly hard to tell.”

“You wouldn’t find it cool to be in the sky with lightning flashing around?”

“No. Not at all. I’m not suicidal.”

Kaito sighs dramatically. “It would be like being one with nature.”

“Right up until you’re electrocuted or blown into a tree.”

“Maybe. Eh, I need to change things up more. I’ve been using the glider more lately and it’s getting predictable. Though to be fair, it’s faster than the balloons I used to use.”

Conan wrinkles his nose. “Balloons?”

“They don’t rely on wind or a specific height to power them,” Kaito says reasonably. “They’re slow though, and can burst. Which isn’t the best once guns come into play.”

“Right. Don’t tell me your plans.”

“You’re going to wonder next heist whether I’ll be using the glider at all, or if I’ll use it just because I said I shouldn’t,” Kaito says with a wink.

“Still hate you.” Conan has that grumpy-but-reluctantly-fond expression on and Kaito’s counting it as a win. Conan’s only pretending to be annoyed on principle.

“Kuroba,” Ai says cutting into the banter. “Could I talk to you alone for a moment?”

“Yes?” Kaito tilts his head to try and glimpse what Ai’s doing, but it doesn’t give any hints for what she wants. Nor does a glance at Conan. Conan shrugs in a way that could mean ‘who knows’ or maybe also ‘good luck’ before wandering out. Kaito’s pretty sure he’s outside the door eavesdropping because that’s standard detective nosiness, but Kaito’s not going to be the one to call him out on that. He’d be doing the same thing.

“Is there something wrong with the scan?” Kaito asks when Ai’s silent a bit too long.

“No,” she says. “I will have to go over it closer just to make sure, but that’s not what this is about.” She spins around in her chair and pins Kaito with a look that is just as sharp as any of the detectives’ stares. Kaito tries not to fidget under the weight of it. “You’re aware I’ve been studying your body.”

Any remnants of Kaito’s light mood crash and burn. “I’m aware.”

“You’re also aware that I created the poison that shrunk Kudo and myself.”

“Conan might have mentioned it.”

Ai folds her hands in her lap. It should look relaxed, but it’s somehow as unsettling as if she steepled her fingers like some kind of cartoon villain. “The chamber holding your body contains an oxygenated gas that, along with some injected substance that I’ve gotten traces of in blood, halts cellular degeneration. It works as a perfect preservative, and along with a very mild electric pulse, is preserving the body’s brain. The body is dead, but it’s been preserved at the exact moment of death. From what I can assess, the cause of death is a stopped heart. The substance injected as the preservative also slowed the heart to the point of death. He would have been aware,” Ai says mercilessly, “that he was dying, but unable to fight it. The chamber would have finished the process.”

She takes a breath. “I’m creating an antidote,” she says. “For Kudo. Personally I have no interest in returning to my former age and identity, but Kudo still has a life and people to return to. In allowing me to look at how your body was preserved, you’ve actually helped me make a few steps toward that goal. It’s not the same science as the apoptoxin, but there were similarities that helped flesh out my notes.”

“So you’re closer to helping Conan be Kudo and my body’s still very dead,” Kaito says. “Great. Why did you need to tell me this?”

Ai’s lips pinch for a moment. “Your body can’t be revived by restarting its heart and lungs no matter how intact they are because of the substance injected in it. And that substance can’t be filtered reliably out. But…”

“But what?” Kaito asks. He’s tempted to fling himself from the chair and leave, but something about her hesitation makes him stay a little longer.

“There’s a chance I could add to it and induce a similar effect as the apoptoxin. The most likely outcome of this would be that the body dies properly and for good. But,” Ai says softly, “there’s a small chance that it reacts the way Kudo and I did and it reverts back to a younger age. An age that’s also revivable because the toxin has run its course.”

Kaito stares. Kaito—the human Kaito—could be saved. Oh, it has to be an infinitesimally small chance of it happening, but it’s that much of a percent more than the rest of eternity spent in a glass box. And, as she said, it could kill him dead. But at least Kaito would actually be dead instead of in limbo.

But if it worked and Kaito’s body becomes a child again, what will that mean for him, the very-much-not-human Kaito? The Kaito that stole his face and stole his life and everyone he loves. Something between terror and jealousy twists in his gut. If the body gets to live, he’ll be the real Kaito again and Kaito won’t be anything.

And yet… Kaito knows that this body doesn’t have many years in it. Statistically speaking, technology doesn’t outlast a human body. A computer is lucky to get four years before something major breaks down. For Kaito’s experimental body… He’ll be lucky to get four years. He has no back-up of his brain, no depository of memories that he can add to on the off chance something goes wrong. He could probably ask Ai, Agasa, and Hakuba to collaborate on one just in case, but then again, he’s not sure he wants that either. That he could die and be replaced by a saved version of himself with gaps in memory… he doesn’t like the idea any more than the real Kaito will like it. So if this is the only shot he has, he might as well give a chance to the human Kaito. That way when he does degrade and become obsolete, they’d maybe have human Kaito still. There would be gaps left, but not as devastating of ones.

It isn’t just his choice to make though, no matter that it is his human body.

“Can I think about it?” Kaito asks, tense as a strung piano wire and doing terribly at hiding it.

“Take all the time you need,” Ai says. “It’s not something I can do overnight, and the body isn’t going anywhere. I just needed to tell you that it’s an option.”

Kaito nods. He needs to leave. He doesn’t want to look like he’s fleeing though. “Thanks for telling me. I should go make a phone call.”

He hears Ai murmur, “Don’t thank me yet,” under her breath as he turns and walks in a deceptively calm manner toward the door. He’s not fooling anyone.

There’s skittering as Conan sprinting away, but that’s fine. He can know about it, it’s not like it makes a difference. Kaito doesn’t even acknowledge Conan’s terrible attempt to look like he’s been watching television the whole time, instead walking straight for the door.

o*O*o

“Hey.” The online call connects with Kaito sitting surrounded by his fifteen doves, their soft feathers and voices soothing the tiny part of himself that kept whirling in panic.

“Kaito,” his mother says, surprised. It’s not their usual day to talk, and he’s only on voice call, not video. He doesn’t want to see what kind of expression she might make. “Is something wrong? You don’t need me to come home do you?”

As nice as it would be to have another of her visits, he won’t ask that of her. “I can’t just call?” he says lightly.

“Of course you can,” Chikage says. Warmly, like when she brushes his hair away from his forehead or gives him little side hugs when they cross into each other’s space. “You don’t ‘just call’ though.”

“Maybe I should,” Kaito says. She would appreciate a son that reached out more. But he’d appreciate her being here more. They’re both independent people, but they’re also social people and he understands. He understands why she needs to travel and see new things and reconnect with old friends. He just doesn’t always like it.

“I’d appreciate it in the future,” Chikage says, “but what did you call for now?”

“An offer was made. About Kaito.”

A beat of silence on the other end as she registers him using his own name. “What kind of offer?” she asks a lot more hesitant than a second ago. They never did talk about the body.

Maybe they should have. It’s so much easier to ignore elephants in the room than to dwell on them. “There’s a procedure Haibara Ai could do. I don’t know the numbers or science on it, but there’s a small chance she could get him alive again. There’d be side effects—” like losing a decade in age “—but he’d be Kaito and alive and human.”

“And what’s the rest of the chances?”

“It’d kill him,” Kaito says quietly. “Completely not just whatever not-death he’s in now. Being honest, it’s a lot higher percentage that he’d die than live from the sound of it, but…”

“I couldn’t kill him,” Chikage says. “I thought about it, like a coma patient on life support at a hospital, but…”

“But he’s not brain dead,” Kaito says with understanding. “I thought about it too. Not all for good reasons.” He doesn’t poke the minefield of jealousy and conflicting feelings of personhood. That way lies depression spirals. “It’s not really right to leave him like that forever though, is it?”

“No.” Chikage sighs. “A really small percentage?” she says, longing.

“Terribly small,” Kaito says. “Haibara didn’t sound confident that it would work. Still, it’d be like him—us—to leave that kind of thing to chance and play the impossible odds.”

He listens to Chikage’s breathing as she thinks, picturing her sitting in some cheesy themed hotel room with a late dinner in the form of hotel catering and the casual chaos of her suitcases slowly taking over the room. Or maybe it is still neat because Chikage reached the point of getting annoyed with clutter and put it all away until the cycle repeated. Either way she’s probably sitting on her bed with her toes tucked under the covers to keep her feet warm like she does at home when they watch movies together.

Kaito misses her terribly sometimes.

One of his doves flutters on his shoulder, right up against his neck all warm and grounding and alive. He pets her, feeling her feathers fluff and settle, her tiny body leaning into his touch.

“If it works, how will we explain two of you?” Chikage asks finally.

“If it works, he probably won’t be able to slip back into his old life, the side effects would make that impossible, and even if they didn’t, he has over a year of life and growth that never happened.” Kaito scratches the feathers along his dove’s neck. “Maybe he could go be with you. At least until he’s recovered and all. He’s… probably not going to like me much.”

“You mean you wouldn’t be your own best friend?” Chikage jokes. It’s a very weak joke, but he gives her points for trying.

“Considering how I reacted to the other robot that tried to steal our life, no.”

“…We’d make things work. If we got him back, we’d figure out a way to make it all work out.”

“Yeah.”

“It wouldn’t make me love you less,” Chikage says hitting to the heart of his fears in all of this. “You’d both be Kaito. I have enough love to go around.”

“I know. Thanks, Kaa-san.” He curls a little tighter and another bird lands on his back like that will get her pettings instead of Kaito trying not to move and dislodge her. “So.”

“I think you should try,” Chikage says. “It’s probably not going to work, but…”

“It’s resolution,” Kaito says.

“Yes.”

The dove on Kaito’s back flutters away but the one on his shoulder stays cuddled close. “Do you want to be here when…?”

Chikage is quiet long enough for Kaito to worry that the call has dropped. “I should be there,” she says, which isn’t really an answer.

“I’ll let you know when Haibara thinks she has things down to try it. You can decide then.”

“Thank you, Kaito.”

Kaito hums and lets her transition the topic to something else, something lighter and not involving death at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go. Thanks for all the support guys <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter!! It's a bit longer than the others, so hope you enjoy :)

**Chapter 10**

There’s a string of heists, half of them involving his mother’s legacy for once instead of his father’s, digging up the memory of Phantom Lady and her enemies. Kaito isn’t sure if he likes her skeletons in the closet any more than he’s enjoyed finding his father’s but, eh. It’s kind of old hat by now. Angry people with guns and a grudge and forgers trying to pull one over on gullible idiots. He’s not too thrilled that Aoko got pulled into things (and man were those people idiots, thinking _Nakamori Aoko_ was Phantom Lady’s legacy. Seriously? Aoko. Kaito had a good laugh at that after he was triply sure that they’d both gotten out of that one uninjured).

But then there’s the train ride from hell that leaves Kaito questioning why he’s even kind of sort of friends with Conan and Ai because he didn’t sign on for murder and who knows how many gangsters and/or undercover people—he has no idea which were which, but clearly there was more than one power play going on during that damn train ride—or nearly getting fricking blown up. Conan _owes_ him. Hell, Ai owes him too because Kaito was the one wearing her freaking adult face when it nearly got blown off.

Kaito never thought he’d prefer his nighttime stalkers over Conan’s, but clearly Kaito has the less extreme group out for his head.

Okay, part of that is probably because they hope he’ll lead them to Pandora, but still. He doesn’t deal with train bombers on top of murderers in his daily life. Conan’s cursed. And keeps collecting more detectives. Kaito’s thoroughly done with anything from Beika for a while. He just wishes Hakuba was in the same time zone so he could rant at him (in vague detail because Kaito isn’t going to spill anyone else’s secrets). But Hakuba’s overseas _again_ and Kaito has Jii, but Jii doesn’t deliver the same biting commentary that Hakuba does that makes a rant session that much more cathartic.

He could rant at Aoko, but Aoko still doesn’t know he’s Kid because Kaito is a coward. If she can forgive and accept him for not being human, surely she can handle him being Kid. Kaito’s sure she’d probably try to kill him a few times before calming down, but that’s nothing new.

Kaito’s not doing very good with her on being open and that’s something he needs to work on. It’s something he’s trying to work on as he half listens to Aoko talk about one of her new favorite bands and he clutches one of her plush toys to his chest, back against her bed as they take up room on her bedroom floor. Trust, Aoko had said the problem was. Trust.

Aoko sighs suddenly. “Did you hear anything I just said?”

Kaito repeats back word for word the last three sentences, but he only understands them as he says them, and it probably shows.

“You’re ages away,” Aoko says.

“Sorry. I’m trying to listen.”

“But you don’t actually care about _Prince Prince_ ’s latest album.”

“I care about you though,” Kaito says blunter than he ever is with her and watches as she blushes.

“….Okay what did you do?” Aoko asks.

“Wow, I show the slightest bit of care and you question everything.”

“You’re allergic to sharing those sort of emotions,” Aoko says, “so if you’re saying them, something’s up. You haven’t been replaced with a third robot, have you?”

Ow. That actually stings, sending a flashback of the robot’s face as it asked questions about love and death. No. Not going there. “No, I’m completely myself. I should probably say I care more often though, huh?”

“It’d be nice but I don’t expect it. You show it a lot better than you say it.”

“Right.” Kaito lets his chin sink into the soft body of Aoko’s toy. “Hey what would you do if there were two of me?”

“Make one of you take me to a concert,” Aoko says without skipping a beat. “Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“…There aren’t two of you, right?”

“I mean technically there are.” Oh wait, Aoko’s never seen the body. Kaito grimaces. “I mean you know original me is dead.”

“Is there another robot running around with your face?”

“Not now. That one’s dead too.”

“Kaito what even is your life?” Aoko says, shaking her head.

“I don’t even know.”

“…If there was one…”

“What?” Aoko doesn’t say anything more and Kaito frowns at her.

She plays with a loose thread in the carpet. “It’s nothing.”

“Aoko.”

She sighs. “Fine. If there was another you, would they be running around in the dark like Kid?”

Kaito doesn’t freeze. He blinks. Slowly. “I know I’m Kid’s biggest fanboy but—”

“Kaito.”

Honesty. “…There don’t have to be two of me to do that.”

The anger and smack from Aoko he’s expecting don’t come, just a long, measuring look.

“Are you going to yell at me?” Kaito asks.

“Are you going to finally confess?” she shoots back.

“Do you want me to?” The plush toy is as much a shield as a comfort now, but she’s still not lashing out.

“I want the truth,” she says like it’s that simple.

His hands feel clammy even though he knows they aren’t. His mind remembers certain physiological responses he no longer has. “My dad,” Kaito finally says in halting fragments of sentences, “was Kid. The first one. The accident… I found out it was murder. I found out about Kid.” His words become surer as she still fails to lash out. It could be the calm before the storm, but while there’s anger in his eyes as he outlines the way he took up Kid’s mantle, there’s resignation, and something like relief. When he runs out of words from explaining how Kid’s activities led to him realizing he was a robot and how Hakuba got involved, he finds himself nervous all over again in the silence.

Then Aoko nods, like he’d been confirming a theory she’d been building for a while now. Of course immediately after she throws a pillow at him with enough force that Kaito sputters. Then Aoko’s arms are around him and Kaito isn’t sure if he’s being hugged or she’s trying to simultaneously put him in a headlock.

“You’re such an idiot,” she says. “An awful, law breaking, idiot who’s a jerk and going to get himself killed!” Kaito chokes a little, glad that Hakuba’s proven that he doesn’t actually need to breathe quite as much as his mind insists he does. “You’ve lied to me and used me to get you to heist sites and—”

“M’sorry!” Kaito gurgles.

“You’re not!” And she’s right as usual; he’d do it again in a heartbeat if he thought it would make a difference in catching his father’s killers. Still, it didn’t mean he felt _good_ about lying to her. “You’re horrible and stupidly brave and could be doing so much better at not almost getting yourself killed! Your morals are a mess and I’m pissed that you kept this from me and furious that you’re Kid and I still love you, you moron!”

“What?” Kaito feels dazed from the blunt force trauma of her words and from the sudden return of oxygen as Aoko leans back, her worst scowl on her face.

“Would it kill you to trust me?”

“I? No? Maybe?” What is happening??? “Why aren’t you screaming at me?”

“Because I kind of knew you were Kid,” Aoko says, scowl softening into a frown. “I just really didn’t want to believe it. Because it meant you were breaking the law and lying to me about it and rubbing it in my dad’s face.” The scowl inches back again and Kaito twitches reflexively away. “The lying part has me the maddest though. But I kind of thought about it again after you told me about being a robot.”

“…You know it wasn’t just a trust thing, right? It’s… It’s dangerous and I’m worried you’re going to end up a target and—”

Aoko shoves a hand over his mouth. “Bakaito, my dad is the head investigator chasing Kid. I’m already involved by proxy. Or do you think your evil men in trench coats are too scared of being noticed by police to touch me?”

Kaito pulls her hand away. “I have the impression that the police might be infiltrated already.”

“Oh…” Aoko looks worried. “That might be a problem.”

“Yeah.”

“But it’s easier to pay attention if I know that a threat could happen,” Aoko says.

“That’s the whole thing; we don’t want it to look like we’re in the know.”

Aoko rolls her eyes. “Then Hakuba’s already ruined that. He’s changed completely around you.”

Kaito winces.

“So there really isn’t any reason to have kept it from me.”

“I was scared. You hate Kid.”

“Still do.” Aoko pokes him in the forehead. “But I love Kaito.” Kaito stares and Aoko freezes, her words catching up to her. A blush starts in her cheeks and slowly covers her whole face. “Uh.”

“Well,” Kaito says slowly as she falls into tongue-tied embarrassment. “I love you too.”

“Uh. Uh really?” Aoko squeaks.

“Why else would I be so scared to tell you?” Kaito asks. “I kind of knew that you… I never thought you’d just say it like that!”

“Why not?” Aoko breaks out of her embarrassment to blink at him.

“Well. That’s.” Shit. She’s the one that’s better at saying how she feels that he is, isn’t she? Even if she also regularly says one thing and does another, she’s still the one to bluntly declare things long before Kaito manages to face emotions head on. “I had this whole fantasy of romancing you,” he blurts out, the middle school fantasies he’d discarded suddenly at the forefront of his mind. “But then things happened, and I was Kid and then the robot thing happened…” Ah, the robot thing. The robot thing that’s probably going to lead to romantic problems because he’s still not sure what’s going on there or where lines are drawn in the emotions he has for people now compared to when he was human.

“And now?” Aoko asks.

“And now there’s still Kid and I’m still a robot.”

“Well you won’t be Kid forever.” Aoko says. “And you’re Kaito no matter what your body is.”

“…I don’t know how that’s going to affect things. Or even if I feel love the same way I used to.”

“That’s okay,” Aoko says. “And you’re going to have time to figure it out. I’m not asking you to date me.”

“You’re not?” Should… should Kaito feel disappointed by this instead of relieved? Because he’s a little relieved. Things are a lot right now and he’s not sure dating on top of that would be great. Not just dating Aoko, but dating anyone. His brain, traitorously flicks to the other confusing friend-love emotions he doesn’t know how to quantify and Kaito shoves those back where they came from. No. Bad brain, not the time.

Aoko raises one eyebrow at him and puts her hands on her hips. “If you think for a second I’m dating you while you’re actively Kid, you need to get your brain scanned. I love you but I’m not dating you while you’re committing crimes.”

Kaito laughs, startled. “That’s the line you’re drawing? Just that?”

“It’s a valid line!” Aoko says irritably. “I’m not going to reward illegal behavior!”

Kaito breaks into giggles. Oh, thank goodness.

“Kaito!”

He pulls Aoko into a hug. He is so glad that he has her. Still has her. Hopefully will still have her for a long time. Aoko is probably going to twist his arm to do things for her for years and he’ll complain and then cave immediately because he’s never going to take this for granted again.

o*O*o

“Remember,” Ai says, “I can’t guarantee that this will work.”

“I know,” Kaito says.

It’s a strained, expectant feeling filling the basement room. Agasa and Jii and Conan all look like they’re expecting the worst, and Hakuba and Aoko look like they don’t know what to expect. Kaito tried to talk them out of it, to just have Ai and Agasa, but he should have expected that they’d stay. Even his mother is here, even if she isn’t in the room itself. Kaito gets it. She doesn’t want to watch her son die if this doesn’t work. She watched Toichi die and that’s more than enough trauma for one life.

Kaito doesn’t really want to watch his body possibly die in agony either, but it feels like witnessing this is the least he can do for the person he came from.

Ai sighs. “Hakuba-san, you’ll be my helper then. I’ll need you to do chest compressions once I inject this. It has to circulate to work.” And the body has no hear beat… The liquid in her syringe is opaque and yellowish and Kaito doesn’t want to know what it is, or how Ai figured out the components she needed. That she feels that she did it successfully is all that matters. Ai, from Kaito’s experience, is both brilliant, and a lot more cautious than the time frame it took to make this made it seem. She’d never attempt it if she didn’t think that it would have a chance of working like the apoptoxin worked on her and Conan.

“I’d ask for your help,” Ai says in aside to Kaito, “but part of this process requires an electric shock, and while it’s low level, you’re especially susceptible to electric damage.”

“Thanks, I appreciate not being electrocuted,” Kaito says, trying for light humor instead of the anxiety that has him wanting to flee for the roof. Or maybe for a closet. Open space or small dark one, he’s not sure what his psyche needs more at the moment. Probably open. Looking at the glass box makes him feel claustrophobic.

“What’s supposed to happen?” Aoko asks as Ai sets up the last few things and Hakuba maneuvers closer; he’ll have to actually climb in the box for the chest compressions and Kaito doesn’t envy him at all.

“Ideally,” Ai says, “I inject this, give it a shock, and that works as a catalyst to trigger the two components to merge. Then it starts working like a certain poison.” The details given to Hakuba, Aoko, and the others were barely scratching the surface of their secrets, and Kaito knows that Hakuba will probably end up cornering Conan later. Still, Conan and Ai both were kind enough to allow them to be here even knowing that it would lead to some of their secrets coming into the open. Especially if it worked. “From there,” Ai continues, “the body’s temperature will rise and cells will start to react in a cascade fashion. They’ll either die, or undergo a change. This isn’t something that can be controlled. The factor that makes the difference is still something I haven’t narrowed down.”

“Oh,” Aoko says.

Kaito told her she might be watching his body die. She came here anyway.

“Of course,” Ai says as she presses the button to open the box, “that all depends on if the two components react together at all.”

They did in lab tests of the body’s blood, but that didn’t mean they would across the board.

The body is exactly the same as all the other times Kaito saw it. Young, preserved, too pale and still and cold. And Kaito’s face, slack and peaceful. At least he could be grateful for the peaceful bit.

Ai fixes a few wires to the body and hands a switch to Agasa to activate when the time comes. Hakuba climbs into the box. Kaito feels like it’s a weight settling over him, not the body in the box. Crushing his lungs and squeezing his chest. Psychosomatic. Not real at all, and yet…

“Begin compressions,” Ai says, and Hakuba does, forcing the body’s still heart to move blood bit by sluggish bit. It’s not as effective as a machine keeping the heart beating, but it’s not like that kind of machine is easy to get or make, let alone use safely. All of this, Kaito thinks a little wildly, is being done by people who are not medical doctors, no matter how extensive some of their knowledge on human biology might be.

Ai waits a few moments before plunging the needle into the body’s neck, in a main vein there, then waits almost a minute as Hakuba keeps the blood circulating, dispersing the drug through the body. Hakuba has a grim, determined expression and Kaito feels sick because what if this fails? What if…?

Hakuba and Conan are no stranger to dead bodies. It’s not near the comfort it should be.

“Hakase,” Ai says, from where she is looking at her watch, like she’s timed down to the second how long she needs to wait before it’s okay to use the electricity. Knowing her, she did.

There’s a soft crackle and Hakuba flinches. But the body? The body gasps, a ragged inhale as it takes its first breath for over a year.

“Hakuba-san,” Ai snaps, “off.”

Hakuba has a split second of confusion before the body beneath him starts to move and he gets off it fast. It’s clear that the heart is beating on its own now, like the process of removing the preservative was all that it needed to let it restart in the first place. But it’s clear that it’s gone from dead, to alive, to actively dying painfully from the way Kaito’s body’s face twists.

Hands scramble clumsily toward his chest, eyelids flutter but don’t open, and the horrible wrenching gasps keep happening.

Kaito shakes, watching. He can’t. He can’t do this. He can’t. He doesn’t move.

A broken sound comes from the body’s throat, sweat and who knows what gathering on his brow and Kaito’s painfully aware that the body only has the barest of modesty preserved. He can see every clench of muscle, every twitch, and each drop of sweat come into being, and more. The air seems to fog, like the body is boiling alive and steam is pouring off of it.

Some of those ragged gasps might be Kaito’s own.

A hand grips his, hard, and Kaito flinches. It’s Conan, Conan watching with too much understanding. Of course he’s understanding, he’s lived this. He’s had his body burn alive and eat away at itself impossibly. Kaito focuses on Conan and his touch instead of the choked sounds of pain or the strange hissing of the body reacting to the toxin. Instead of a scent he doesn’t know what to describe as, except that it will probably haunt his nightmares. Small fingernails dig into his skin, the bit of pain dragging him out of the panic.

There’s no more sounds of struggle, no more horrible gasping. There is, however, what Kaito’s pretty sure is Aoko crying.

“There’s a heartbeat,” Ai says in her detached, clinical voice. How she can stand to watch this Kaito doesn’t know, but she’s stronger than he is at the moment.

Wait. “A heartbeat?” Kaito asks, his voice wobbling out of his control.

“Steady heartbeat,” Hakuba confirms, though he sounds off. Kaito makes himself look. Hakuba leans over something in the glass box, and he looks like he’s just personally witnessed Akako’s brand of magic. Well, a person going from a teenager to a child is kind of like magic.

Kaito keeps clutching Conan’s hand and takes a step forward.

Kaito’s body is curled on its side, one hand still clutching loosely at the chest. It’s sweaty and sick looking, and the underwear are half falling off, way too big for the tiny form. There’s still wires trailing off him. But Kaito can see the slight rise and fall of his chest and the pulse in his throat and knows that it’s very much alive. He, Kaito, the human Kaito, is alive.

“Oh.” Kaito takes another trembling step forward. “Is he… how much recovery does this take?”

Ai lets out a slow breath. “That depends. It was less than fifteen minutes for me. Conan?”

“I don’t know, I had a head injury.”

“So it might be a while or it might be a few minutes. It’s faster the more times it happens.”

“It can happen more than once?” Hakuba says, pale.

“I’m working on an antidote,” Ai says. “The ones so far aren’t permanent.”

She steps back and Kaito takes her place, finally letting go of his death grip on Conan. Aoko comes up alongside him and Hakuba even as Jii hurries out to get Kaito’s mother.

“I have questions,” Hakuba says, “but I have the feeling I won’t be given answers.”

“It’s better not to dig either,” Ai says. She gathers things to take blood samples and whatnot, probably to make sure she didn’t screw anything up.

Kaito keeps staring. He’s so…small. It’s like looking like an actual child, only ill, sweat-streaked hair and clammy human body and all. There are goosebumps forming on tiny-Kaito’s arms and legs.

“I thought he was going to die,” Aoko whispers.

“Yeah.” Kaito leans against her. But he didn’t die. He revived. “He’s going to hate me.”

Aoko and Hakuba both look at him. “That’s your first thought?” Hakuba asks. “That he’ll hate you?”

“Yes? I mean I would if I woke up a year and a half after being killed by my kidnapper and found myself both a child and replaced by a robot version of me, so…”

“And you still advocated for trying this?”

“Of course. I couldn’t leave him like that.” Kaito reaches out and tiny-Kaito’s cheek is soft under his fingertips. Warm and life-like and not nearly so pale as a few minutes ago. The pulse in his neck is quick the way children’s pulses are. Alive, alive, alive. 

Tiny-Kaito’s breath hitches softly, a twitch in his limbs. An almost in audible groan. Eyes flick open and freeze on Kaito’s face. And in that second, the child-Kaito goes from sleepy and vulnerable to terrified and angry.

Kaito snatches his hand away as child-Kaito tries to immediately force his body into a defensive posture. Only his limbs are, of course, all wrong and he’s left clutching at oversized underwear with panic bubbling under a paper-thin blank face.

“What,” he says, voice too high and raspy, “the fuck.”

o*O*o

Human-Kaito’s eyes dart around the room, flicking over the faces he doesn’t know—more than half of them—and toward the ones he does. Aoko. Back to Kaito because of course he’s wondering what the heck is happening. Only his face twists into a grimace of hate and Kaito realizes that he must not have all the same memories.

The memories that transferred to him weren’t the last memories human-Kaito had. And human-Kaito must have seen the robot—either Kaito or the other robot—with his face before he died. Maybe even had the doctor talk to him about what was happening before he died. It hits like one of Conan’s soccer balls to the gut.

“Wait,” Kaito starts, but the child-Kaito is ripping wires free, blood trailing from the ones that had been stuck to—in?—his temples for as long as he’s been in the box.

“Imposter,” child-Kaito says, and it’s like a cut of a scalpel, almost too sharp to feel how deep it cuts until blood is welling up between your fingers. “Aoko, step back!”

“I’m not.” He can’t even finish the sentence. Child-Kaito’s eyes flick around for tools, maybe or escape routes. The likelihood that someone would stop him if he ran. Ai is saying something but neither of them are hearing it and Aoko is crying again. “I’m not…”

Hakuba touches Kaito’s elbow and he flinches, ripping his gaze from his counterpart.

A door slams as Chikage bursts through it. “Kaito!”

“Kaa-san?” The other Kaito gets swept into their mother’s embrace.

Everyone but Hakuba and Conan are watching them so Kaito takes a step back, and another. And another. Hakuba moves with him. Conan and Hakuba have only known him, the false-Kaito, not the boy they just saved. Well, so have Ai and Agasa, but they never took great pains to get to know Kaito like the detectives had.

“Kaito,” Hakuba says softly. “You don’t have to leave.”

“His last memory is dying,” Kaito says. “And possibly seeing me with his face.” And he’s the real, human, living Kaito. “I need to…” He gestures toward the door.

“Do you want me to—”

“No. I. I need a moment ok?”

Hakuba takes him at his word and lets go, which he really shouldn’t. Kaito’s a liar more often than not about his needs. It’s Hakuba trying to be a good friend again and it has tears pricking at Kaito’s eyes just as much as seeing his mother embracing the small, human form of his original self does.

Kaito’s out the door in a flash, halfway out the house before he changes his mind and heads for the roof instead. He didn’t used to mind closed spaces, so when did he start feeling claustrophobic when he was overwhelmed? Is this something his own or is it the other Kaito’s as well?

The roof door bangs as he uses too much force but warm, fresh air hits his face and some inner part of him calms slightly. The sun is well on its way to making the roof overly warm, but it’s a kind of warm he wants when some part of him inside feels cold.

Honestly? He didn’t think it would work. The numbers Ai gave, the knowledge that dozens of people had been poisoned and yet the number who survived it didn’t fill a single hand to count. The fact that it’s not even the original apoptoxin recipe—it shouldn’t have worked. Kaito was ready to try, to be traumatized by his body’s death all over again, and clear his conscience with the fact that he’d tried. But it did work and now the actual Kaito exists again and he’s still filling his place. And he’s not going to be able to take that place because he’s in a child’s body. And knowing himself—because they could still arguably be considered to have the same thought process; a year wasn’t that long—he would blame Kaito because Kaito is the perfect scape goat. He represents the obstacle to returning to normal life. Normal life which for the original Kaito feels like a day or so at most, not a year and a half and change.

There’s a very real question of whether the original Kaito will try to kill him. After all, Kaito killed the other robot. Yeah, technically the robot attacked first, and technically Kaito didn’t pull the trigger, but he’s still the one that got the robot to kill itself. Even if the robot hadn’t been murderous, he probably would have done the same thing just to get his identity back.

Kaito shivers even with the concrete radiating heat around him.

It doesn’t matter that he didn’t know. It doesn’t matter that Kaito didn’t choose to be created. He still took Kaito’s place. His life, his friends, his goals. And he isn’t going to give them back.

“I’m a person,” he tries, the words feeling wrong. “I’m a robot.” Those don’t feel right either. “…I’m Kaito.” That rings true. Enough people have agreed with it that he can believe he’s truly a full copy of Kaito that went on living. But will they still think so with the human one back?

He starts breathing too fast, then, when trying to correct that, almost stops breathing entirely. He’s going to vibrate out of his skin. He’s going to vault himself over the roof. He’s going to stand like a statue, blank faced, because he’s too full and has to contain it.

The sun does not spontaneously combust him, sadly. Kaito has to keep standing there with whirling doubts and absolutely no higher power intervention to point him toward a clear outcome.

Pity.

The sun moves higher, and then lower in the sky. Kaito doesn’t try to keep track of the passing time. The longer it goes without anyone looking for him though, the more part of him wonders if anyone will come looking at all. At some point—maybe two hours later, maybe longer—there’s the sound of the door opening and footsteps too light to be an adult. Conan, Kaito thinks, only when he turns he’s met with his own child face.

It’s set in a distrusting frown, but the hatred from before isn’t there at the moment. It’s a small blessing. At least child-Kaito has clothes on now.

Kaito considers the merits of vaulting off the roof again. “Were you looking for me?” Kaito asks with neutral voice and expression. It feels like he’ll be torn into if he shows weakness here. Like vulnerability is the same as a flaw for his original self to pick at until he unravels all that Kaito is.

“They told me it’s been almost nineteen months,” the human Kaito says. “And that you’ve been living my life the whole time.”

“That’s true,” Kaito says.

“They also say that they can’t turn me back to the age I should be.”

“That’s also true. Haibara-san is working hard on that though.” She’s probably another step closer to understanding it after today. She could probably isolate a sample to work backward from using human Kaito’s blood and tissue samples.

“Did you agree to try because you knew I wouldn’t be able to take back my life?” his human self asks. His hands are balled into fists, frustration leaking past attempted control.

“No.” It’s the truth; he had known that if it worked, Kaito would be stuck in a child form, but he’d been more preoccupied by him existing at all than thinking about the fact that he couldn’t kick Kaito out of the life he’d had for the last year and a half. “No, I agreed to try because I wanted resolution.” This isn’t resolution though. “I didn’t think you’d live,” he admits.

The small body beside him tenses, anger flashing. “You meant to kill me then,” he says.

“No. Yes. Not intentionally.” Kaito wishes that he didn’t have to be so guarded against himself. But they weren’t really both the same people anymore were they? Maybe the day he was created. Maybe days following that, but there’s a gap now. In experience and memory and growth. “I almost did once. I could have pulled the plug. Kaa-san could have. Any of us could have.” Kaito tries not to feel hurt by the twitch his namesake gives at the mention of their mother.

“Why didn’t you?”

Kaito looks at him. It’s his face. His face that he saw in the mirror, saw in photos, saw in his nightmares. But it’s the face of a child too. It’s a face that Kaito knows better with a smile than wearing a scowl. “I had a panic attack,” he says instead of a direct answer, “when I figured out what I was. And another when I found you. Do you know what it’s like to look at your own corpse?”

“You’re not me,” child-Kaito snaps.

“We have the same memories,” Kaito says, “to a point. I wanted what you wanted. I loved who you loved. I feared what you feared. I didn’t know any different until something gave me reason to. Maybe we’re not the same person now, but we might as well have been until you died.”

“You don’t have a memory of that,” human-Kaito says. He stares Kaito in the eye, almost cruel. “You don’t have the memory of watching something with your face stare back at you or an insane old man injecting you and knowing that you’re not going to wake up. And that nothing you do, no skill you’ve learned,” he continues, merciless to both of them, “will save you. And that there’s something with your face that’s going to go talk to your friends and they’re not going to know the difference.”

“And you don’t know what it’s like, waking up with a corpse of a crazy old man and an incomplete robot with your face threatening you with a gun. You don’t know what it’s like living with the fact that you looked that robot in the eye and tricked it into blowing its own brains out.” Kaito feels cold anger stirring in him. This isn’t his fault. It’s not either of their faults it just is. And if the other Kaito wants to tell painful truths? He’ll get painful truths right back. “You don’t know what it’s like to spend six months thinking you put that trauma behind you only to learn that you’re barely a step up from the thing you killed. You don’t know what it’s like to open a box and see yourself, cold and still and have proof that you really aren’t alive, just some damn facsimile of life. You don’t—” Oh no, he’s crying, no, he’s not supposed to cry, to be vulnerable— “D-don’t know what it’s like. To wonder if everyone is going to hate you. Or if they’ll want to pick you apart. Or… or… kill you because!”

His control breaks. He can’t. Kaito slumps, hands pressed to his eyes like that will stop the tears. “I didn’t know! And every moment since I did know I’ve been terrified! I don’t heal, I break! I can’t be you but I don’t know how to be anyone else! I didn’t ask for this!”

“You think that makes it better?” the other Kaito growls.

“No!” Kaito dashes away tears and glares right back. “It makes it worse! It’s a horrible situation and I hate it but what the hell can either of us do about it? I didn’t ask to be born, you didn’t ask to die, and like hell am I dying just because you’re alive again!”

They’re both breathing hard, on the edge of things turning physical, or at least physical from human-Kaito’s end. Kaito isn’t so far gone that he’d punch a child even if that child’s actually himself. He hates everything about that thought and it’s annoying as hell.

“Why didn’t you pull the plug?” child-Kaito asks again.

“I’m not suicidal,” Kaito snaps. “Or homicidal. And no matter what the hell else is going on, I don’t actually want you dead! I left it to chance.” He wipes the lingering wetness from his cheeks. “I just want to stop seeing you in my nightmares.”

“Same.”

Kaito blinks. Child-Kaito frowns back at him, arms crossed. “Excuse me?”

“I said same,” he says. “I’m told that my brain never died. Well, it had plenty of time to cycle through dreams, and some of them I even remember.”

And his last memory involved seeing someone with the same face… Oh.

“I don’t want to fight,” Kaito says. “I just don’t want to lose everything I care about any more than you do.”

“You have everything from what I can tell,” child-Kaito says bitterly. “They’re worried about you right now.”

“They have you,” Kaito says. “Aoko and Kaa-san. They wanted you. They mourned you. There’s a memorial at home.”

“And they had you in the meantime and did things I didn’t.”

Well, Kaito thinks, at least they’re both upset and jealous of the other. No one wins, everyone loses.

“And some of them are only your friends,” child-Kaito continues, frown deepening.

“…Are you jealous that I made friends?” Kaito asks, mystified.

“No! Just.” His nose wrinkles. “Detectives? Really? What the hell?”

Kaito snorts. He probably gets synthetic snot all over in the process but whatever. “They grow on you.”

“Like a fungus?”

Kaito almost laughs at that. He feels like someone reached into his chest and gutted him, hollow and tired, like the turmoil of emotions there have burnt to ash. “They can keep up,” he says because he knows the other Kaito will get what he means.

“Okay, but that Hakuba guy?” His expression is the exact same distaste Kaito felt toward Hakuba in the beginning and Kaito falls into slightly hysterical, mostly suppressed laughter that he’s not even sure he’s feeling.

“I know,” he finally says as the other Kaito watches him like he’s a strange and potentially dangerous animal. “He’s less obnoxious once he stops trying so hard.”

“Really?”

“No, but it stopped bothering me a while after he saved my life.” The gap in memories looms between them. “I can fill you in,” Kaito offers. “If you want.”

Suspicion never really left the other Kaito’s eyes, but they both know that they can’t really change things at this point. Not who they are, or what’s happened to them. “Tell me,” child-Kaito says.

So Kaito does. Starting with the other robot and leading up to today.

It’s a long story, but Kaito sits and listens.

o*O*o

Hakuba finds him later while mini-Kaito and Ai are arguing about whether or not he could go home or if he needed to be watched for side effect. Kaito’s still hanging back and letting everyone else have their moment with other Kaito.

“Better?” Hakuba asks quietly as Kaito’s eyes linger on the way his mother can’t seem to help reaching out to mini-Kaito’s shoulder again and again.

“Mm, a bit. Don’t think we’ll kill each other,” he says with a wan flash of a smile. “Probably.”

“He isn’t going to kill you.” Hakuba sits next to him, a warm line from shoulder to hip. He could have sat further away, but it’s probably Hakuba being supportive.

Kaito will take that. He leans into it a bit, just enough to feel warmer, but not enough to be obvious about it. “Mm.” He’s still not convinced that mini-Kaito’s decided to let him live yet.

“You’re not the sort of man that kills,” Hakuba says with surety.

Kaito appreciates his trust, really, but whether or not mini-Kaito is that kind of man all depends on whether or not he decides to view Kaito as a person instead of a distorted mirror-image replica. “Well, I’m glad you at least trust my morals that far,” Kaito says.

“I trust them further than that,”

“Mm. Hey, what’s your first impression of him?” Kaito asks as mini-Kaito starts getting dramatic in his argument.

“Do you want an honest opinion?” Hakuba asks.

“Sure. Why not?”

“He’s a bit of a brat once he’s not panicking.”

“…Is that a round-about way of saying that I’m a brat?” Kaito asks, giving Hakuba a side eye.

Hakuba huffs. “You can be a brat,” he says, “but you are far ahead of him in the ability to express yourself healthily.”

“Are… you saying I’m actually mature?” Kaito asks.

“No, I’m saying you’re more mature than him. There’s a difference.”

“Aww,” Kaito says elbowing Hakuba lightly. “You like me better.”

Hakuba, not teasing at all, looks him in the eye and says, “Of course I do. It’s you that I’m friends with. I’ve only just met him.”

Kaito stares. That’s… Wow. Okay. His cheeks feel hot. “Well, uh. Thanks. I guess.”

“You’re welcome,” Hakuba says solemnly. “If you need a place to avoid the awkward fall out of this at any time, you’re welcome at my home, with or without my presence.”

“…Thanks.”

“And Aoko-san is going to be your friend as much as ever. I’m sure once it sinks in that there are now two Kuroba Kaitos in existence she’ll be exasperated at both of you.”

Kaito laughs at Hakuba’s dry delivery. He does have a sense of humor, it just took Kaito a while to find it. As if on cue, Aoko glances their direction. She smiles at Kaito and Kaito knows Hakuba is right. Things will work out.

“If he goes home tonight,” Kaito says as the increasingly dramatic argument continues, “we’re going to have a fight about who gets my bedroom.”

“Are you going to share?”

Kaito wrinkles his nose. “I’ll probably take a guest room and make it mine. I’m not the one who has to relearn everything after a year and a half on ice. But, I’m not leaving him everything in my room. That’s going to take time.”

“I’ll go join the side for him staying a night’s observation,” Hakuba offers, a private, fond smile for Kaito alone.

“I knew there was a reason we were friends.”

“Ah, you only like me for my skills,” Hakuba jokes.

“Eh, you have a nice body too.” Kaito laughs and skips down to join the others as Hakuba sputters. He can’t keep sitting on the sidelines if he wants to keep his place.

o*O*o

“I’d better not have to deal with two of you on heists,” Conan says when they leave the Professor’s house. “You’re a nuisance enough, thief.”

And…

“You’re both my sons,” Chikage says that night. “You’re Kaito.” And Kaito lets her hug him and tries to believe her.

And…

“It’s weird seeing you two together. It’s like looking at the past,” Aoko says when Kaito walks her home. “But Kaito is Kaito.” She squeezes his hand before she closes her door.

And…

“Kaito-bocchama, thank you,” Jii says before he leaves for the night. “I’m proud of you.” He gives Kaito a hug as well. He really is the closest thing Kaito has to a grandfather.

And…

Each and every person he loves reaches out that night to reassure him he’s not forgotten. The human Kaito’s back, but Kaito’s not going to be forgotten.

Kaito cries a bit once he’s alone but for once they’re the good kind of tears.

o*O*o

It takes a while to reach an actual peace between them. Kaito tries to give his counterpart space as much as he can. Officially, he now has a younger brother who was born in America. Human-Kaito had settled on the name Ayato (怪斗), finding it hilarious to throw in a kanji from ‘kaitou’ into the mix. “Oyaji had ‘thief’ in his name, so why not tie it all together and have the other half in mine?” Ayato had said.

That said, it had been hard to convince him to be the one to change his name in the first place, and he was still Kaito to Aoko and Chikage. And sometimes Jii, though Jii seemed a lot more conflicted about the whole thing probably because he’d known Kaito longer than he did Ayato despite technically having met Ayato when he was actually as young as he appeared.

Things aren’t perfect, and probably have a long way to reach that, but Kaito finds that once they’re not on edge about each other’s existence, he gets along with Ayato fine most of the time. It should be expected, being the same person for most of their memories, but Kaito finds certain aspects of Ayato obnoxious and Ayato feels the same back. Funny how certain things from an outside perspective aren’t as funny. Kaito probably owes Hakuba and Aoko some apologies and questions about why they befriended him anyway. But when they aren’t getting one each other’s nerves?

Kaito smiles, plans for a heist unfurled on the kitchen table. Ayato’s also on the table, legs swinging aimlessly as he traces a finger along a blueprint.

“Here,” Ayato says. “If you put the smoke canisters here—”

“It’s the best dispersal point with less chance of being found,” Kaito finishes. “But we’d need to—”

“Yeah, close these vents here, obviously, but that’s easy. You can do it when you plant the canisters.”

“Which still leaves—”

“—just cut the power supply—”

“Ooh, yeah and maybe a?”

“Wire trap? Mm, if you can keep the police from finding it.”

“Hide it in with their traps. They won’t even notice.”

Chikage, cooking dinner half a room away, laughs at them.

“What?” Kaito and Ayato ask in synch. They frown at each other.

“Nothing, nothing,” Chikage says. “It’s just nice to see you getting along.”

“This is a Kid heist,” Ayato says seriously. “It’s important.”

“We aren’t going to argue over that.”

“Though I still think you should let me be a secret weapon,” Ayato complains.

“Look, Conan being there is explainable because he’s Conan. You would stand out. Maybe make a name for yourself as a Kid fan or something sneaking into heist scenes first, and helping can come second.”

“People barely ever look down! They’ll be looking up because they always look up for Kid!” Ayato pauses. “Actually we should take advantage of that.”

“Hmm, yeah let’s just start a heist creeping across the floor on my hands and knees.”

“Ugh, no, booby trap the floor. Like with super sticky rat-trap adhesive.”

Kaito snickers. Sure all people would have to do is slip out of their shoes, but oh would it be worth it.

“Ok, ok, but you do have to help me come up with a way to stop Conan. You’re the same height so…”

“Fine.” Ayato says. “Although really, why are you friends with so many people who want to arrest you?”

“The thrill of it?”

“Adrenaline junkie.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Heists, at least, have gotten a lot more interesting for everyone involved. It’s amazing the difference one brain and an extra set of devious little hands makes.

o*O*o

The look of horror on Conan’s face when Ayato transfers to his class is one Kaito’s going to treasure forever. Thank you Ayato for capturing that on camera.

“Why is he in Beika?” Conan says to Kaito later, looking like he’s a thread away from strangling Ayato. “Shouldn’t he be in Ekoda?”

“He wanted to be with ‘the other cursed souls forced back into childhood,’” Kaito quotes, watching Ayato try and fail to climb up a wall with his child limbs—the learning curve has him incredibly frustrated and it would be pretty funny except that if Kaito shows any of that, Ayato starts looking like he’s contemplating homicide. Roboticide? What would the correct word be in this situation?

“I’ve had my entire class ask me about my ‘cousin,’” Conan says.

“You have to admit, it’s a decent cover.”

“He still has your last name.”

“Well yeah, but it’s totally possible Oyaji had a cousin or something. Not like I know his family tree. That cousin totally could be you.”

“I’m already posing as Kudo Shinichi’s cousin and a distant relative of Agasa’s.”

“It’s a really tangled family tree,” Kaito says.

Ayato manages to get halfway up the wall before he loses grip this time. He lands on his feet instead of almost landing on his face at least.

“We were so glad when we had the couple centimeters more to reach better handholds,” Kaito says with a sigh, thinking about his childhood. “I’m going to have to tease the shit out of him for being short.”

Conan eyes him. “Do you have a death wish?” Even he’s noticed that Ayato’s a bit more on the emotionally trigger happy side than Kaito. Kaito blames his specific brand of trauma and less time ruminating on what it means to be a human being because he can’t remember quite as much of an instinct to fight people as Ayato has. Prank, yes, but Ayato goes for ankles and shins.

“It’s a working relationship,” Kaito says.

“I’m right here!” Ayato calls. “You’re not even being quiet!”

“Bet you a Crunky bar you can’t make it next try!” Kaito calls back.

Ayato gives him two middle fingers before doing just that. “Milk chocolate! None of that white chocolate crap!”

Kaito laughs and nods.

“I don’t understand you,” Conan says. “Either of you.”

“You know, at one point we wanted a sibling?”

“Yeah?”

“Not sure yet if this is great or terrible.”

Conan gives him the blank look of someone who’s been subjected to one of Kaito’s class-disruptive binges and Kaito starts laughing again.

He gives Conan a pat on the back. “You’ll get used to it.” Then he goes to help Ayato down because getting up a wall is a lot easier than trying to figure out getting back down from three or four times your height when your handholds barely got you there in the first place. Ayato’s kind of the brother he never had. And also Kaito. Which is still confusing. They’re working on it.

At least he’s not the only one having to deal with him.

“Oi, Edogawa!” Ayato says. “Bet you can’t make it up here!”

“Bet I could get you down really fast!” Conan calls back.

Kaito laughs.

o*o*O*O*O*o*o

Aoko laughs as Ayato and Conan run past, bickering as they have since the moment they met. Ayato yelps as Conan aims a kick at his shins, but he’s stolen Conan’s dart watch so fair’s fair.

Kaito has to smile from where he’s lounging against Hakuba.

“Kaito, you’re heavy,” Hakuba says, struggling to sit comfortably with Kaito putting half his weight against Hakuba’s side.

“And you’re comfortable.” He turns to drape himself a bit more, aiming for Hakuba’s shoulders, not just his back. It’s something he’s doing more of lately, seeking out physical contact.

Hakuba twists and Kaito falls into his lap. And pointedly makes himself comfortable. “Really?” Hakuba says holding his book a bit higher so he’s not hitting Kaito in the face.

“This is even more comfortable,” Kaito says with an exaggerated flutter of eyelashes.

“Aoko is a meter away,” Hakuba says.

“And you’re here.” Kaito gives him his brightest smile and Hakuba caves because Hakuba is hilariously weak to Kaito turning charm his direction.

Hakuba rolls his eyes and rearranges the book to one hand, the other absently brushing through Kaito’s hair. That’s another new thing, Hakuba touching back. Kaito likes it. He likes Aoko hugging back and when she agrees to hold his hand, and the way Chikage kisses him on the forehead. Little demonstrative ways that show that Kaito is theirs and they’re his just as much as they’re Ayato’s.

Ayato’s not nearly as comfortable with this sort of thing, but Ayato has a year and a half less emotional growth and also hates the fact that he can be tossed over anyone’s shoulder like a sack of rice.

Somewhere in Agasa’s yard Conan’s kiddie friends have set up a bubble blowing competition with Ai judging and Agasa providing some new, extra-long-lasting elastic bubble solution. Kaito can see the results bobbing in the breeze, carried higher and higher in shimmery spheres.

Chikage and Jii are handling lunch with Mouri Ran, and Aoko and Kaito are supposed to be keeping Ayato from trouble, but in reality it’s Conan providing a distraction as Aoko cheers them on and Kaito watches.

The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and Kaito is surrounded by people he loves. And they love him too. It’s more than he could ever have hoped for, and more than he deserves. He’s trying to believe that he does deserve some of the happiness he has lately, but it’s a process that will take a long while.

He’s let himself believe that he can have that long while too. With progress on a backup for his memories in the works and Hakuba still dedicating time toward understanding all of Kaito… He might last long enough to see Ayato grow to his proper age and then some.

Aoko comes and sits against Hakuba’s other side and Hakuba sighs like he’s being taken advantage of.

Kaito reaches one hand to Aoko and the other up to Hakuba’s face to poke him.

“You like this,” Kaito says.

“I will bite your finger,” Hakuba says, tips of his ears pink as Aoko giggles against his shoulder.

Kaito pokes him again and pulls his hand back as Hakuba actually nips at him.

“I’m reading,” Hakuba says.

“But you’re just so comfortable!” Aoko says between giggles, trying to imitate Kaito. The eye roll she gets for that is enough to have her laughing enough to end up in Hakuba’s lap too, giving Kaito a mouthful of hair and leaving Hakuba as red as his book cover.

“Must you?” Hakuba asks them, but he’s smiling even though he’s trying so hard to look grumpy.

Kaito grins up at him, shoving Aoko’s hair out of his face. She still has her hand tangled in his.

Ayato lands on his gut, all elbows and sharp bony knees. “Oof!”

“Oi, quit being gross and help me with the tiny critic!” Ayato says imperiously.

“I think you took out my spleen,” Kaito groans.

“You don’t have a spleen,” Ayato says.

“And everyone is getting off my lap,” Hakuba says, pushing them gently.

Kaito lets go of Aoko and rolls. “You interrupted cuddle time,” Kaito says, pouting. “You’re on your own, brat.”

“Think you can’t keep up, bot?” Ayato challenges.

Kaito’s eyebrow twitches. He pulls out the weapons he was saving for later in the picnic. “Four water balloons each, whoever gets him with the most wins.”

“Deal.”

“Where were you hiding those?” Hakuba asks.

“Guess,” Kaito says with a wink. He offers Aoko a hand up. “Want to join?”

Aoko, who’s lying next to Hakuba now, declines. “If you can get more balloons later I will though.”

“If anyone gets my book wet,” Hakuba warns, “they’ll regret it.”

Ayato cocks an eyebrow at Kaito. Kaito twitches his chin slightly in negative. An angry Hakuba is a Hakuba that holds a grudge. Also he hasn’t finished that book yet. Kaito isn’t cruel.

“Conan?” Kaito says.

“Conan,” Ayato agrees.

The chaos that follows is one of the brightest memories of Kaito’s short, robotic life. And hopefully, there will be many more to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note on Human-Kaito’s new name: His original name is spelled: 快斗 with the ‘Kai’ kanji for ‘cheerful’ and the ‘To’ coming from the kanji for the Big Dipper. Ayato spells his name: 怪斗 (which could also be read Kaito, ‘Kai’ or ‘Aya’ being the main readings for the first kanji) using the ‘Aya’ for ‘suspicious’. It’s also the ‘kai’ in ‘kaijuu/monster’ so that’s fun. It’s the ‘Kai’ used in Phantom Thief/Kaitou, which compliments Toichi’s name-- 盗一 , the ‘Tou’ in his name being the kanji for ‘steal/theft’ So you have ‘first thief’ more or less literally being Toichi’s name ahaha. ^_^;; Anyway, Ayato wanted to pay homage to his father, keep some of the name pun, and have a call back to his actual name at the same time, so it worked out well. (I got all my kanji readings from Tangorin,so hopefully I got all that correct)
> 
> Thanks for reading this angst machine!! Have a bit of happy to cleanse the palate ^_~ Thanks for all the comments too <3 Makes writing worth it <3<3


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